


through fields where sunlight streams (this train carries fools and kings)

by ScribeofArda



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: A surprising amount of references to Springsteen songs, All the tropes you were always warned about, Alternate Universe - Sports, And some more thrown in for the sake of it, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But they are okay in the end, But they find their way to each other, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gaby has to put up with a lot, Hurt/Comfort, Illya and Napoleon are rival cyclists, Lots of sass and snark between them, M/M, People nearly breaking themselves for the sake of their sport, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Tour de France AU, crashes, cycling au, injuries, or more accurately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 88,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeofArda/pseuds/ScribeofArda
Summary: 2,200 miles, 21 days, nearly 200 cyclists. The Tour de France is the toughest road cycling race in the world, and every year cyclists nearly break themselves in pursuit of the win, the pinnacle of their sport.Napoleon Solo is infamous in the road cycling world, and only most of it is for the way he climbed up the ranks, winning championships until he's nearly touching the infamous yellow jersey of the winner of the Tour de France. Illya Kuryakin is merely a domestique, someone who has to give up every chance of victory for their team leader. Both of them would sacrifice almost anything to win the Tour, to cement themselves as the best road cyclist in the world, and damn the consequences.But a crash on the first day suddenly thrusts Illya into the yellow jersey, the spotlight and straight into Napoleon. They collide explosively, but as the Tour races on and turns more into a two-man race between them every day, Napoleon and Illya find it harder and harder to see each other as just rivals.Neither of them quite want to admit there could be more, but the Tour never runs smooth, and there's more waiting for them on the steep mountain roads.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is the new Tour de France AU that I've been talking about for a while! I watch the Tour de France most years, but I'm not that involved in it, so you shouldn't have to know anything at all about the Tour to read this. Everything relevant to the Tour is going to be explained as the story goes along, and if you want to know anything at all, feel free to drop by in the comments!
> 
> This story is currently sitting finished at 84k, so it's going to go on for a while! Hope you all enjoy.

_Cinq._

The rain is falling hard now, almost bouncing off the road that unfurls out in front of him. He raises a hand and brushes a few stray droplets off the sports sunglasses he’s wearing under his helmet.

_Quatre._

Down the start ramp, and then on the roads through Lyon. He knows he has to pace himself, he knows there’s twenty kilometres of road to the finish line of this first day, but he feels himself twitching in anticipation.

_Trois._

He adjusts his hold on the handlebars of his bike for the last time, tracing the ridges of the grip as he looks up at the road ahead. There are fans hanging over the barriers, waiting for the light to go green, but he ignores them. They’re not important. Only the race is.

_Deux._

He sets his feet on the pedals, leaning forwards slightly over the handlebars of the bicycle and bracing himself as he waits for the countdown to end, for the lights above his head to tick through and go green, for the race to finally start. He’s spent months training for these three weeks, months pushing himself as far as his body can go and then further, everything to try and gain a foothold in this race, to try and get a chance at being the best he can be for his team.

_Un._

He can feel his heart beginning to race in his chest, the familiar feel of adrenaline coursing through him as he waits for that final second, the one that always stretches out into eternity and is over before he even realises. He draws in a breath, feels his chest expand as he braces himself.

_Allez!_

The light turns green.

0-o-0-o-0

_And the Tour de France begins for another cyclist, here in Lyon. This is Illya Kuryakin setting out on the time trial, the first test of the riders to determine the leaderboard at the beginning of this Tour._

_Yes, this time trial is undoubtedly easier than many of the days the riders have ahead of them for the three weeks of this Tour, with over 200km being covered on some days. That doesn’t mean this isn’t influential, though- often this will decide the top ten cyclists for the whole race._

_Quite right, Chris, and Kuryakin looks to be making good time over the first kilometre out of the twenty that this time trial covers. He’s riding for team Mercedes, and whilst he could set a good time-_

_-he is national champion back in his home of Russia, of course._

_Of course, but Kuryakin is likely to be taking somewhat of a figurative back seat in this Tour. Team Mercedes is very well known for their leader, Elias Weber of Germany, and he is one of the favourites for that infamous yellow jersey that the race leader wears, and the ultimate prize in this race._

_Yes, and I should make clear to new viewers that it isn’t a literal jersey- you’ll have to blame the translation from the French, le maillot jaune, for that name. The rider who is leading the Tour each day, with the fastest collective time of the previous races, will wear a yellow cycling lycra shirt instead of their usual team colours. The yellow jersey can change hands many times over the length of the Tour, and I think that this year it really is going to be a battle between Weber and Solo, the other favourite riding in this race._

_Anyway, back to Kuryakin, who is still making good time as he crosses the three kilometre mark. Kuryakin is an absolute powerhouse, a build much bigger than you’d see in the average cyclist, but it gives him a great advantage when the Tour heads into the Alps and they start climbing._

_Yes, and that build is going to be a great benefit to Weber, as Kuryakin is his lead domestique for the mountains._

_A domestique, for those who aren’t aware of the term, is a rider who is there to help their team leader win the yellow jersey. Most of the riders in the Tour are domestiques, with seven or eight on a team with the leader, and possibly a sprinter as well. Domestiques will lead their leader out for most of the race, using up all their energy to keep their team leader up in front and giving them a slipstream to ride in, before pulling away in the final throes of the day’s race to give their team leader a chance to win the stage._

_Yes, Nicole, being a domestique is all about teamwork and sacrifice. Kuryakin has ridden as domestique for Mercedes before, and each time he has been invaluable in the mountains for Weber. He’s setting a good time now in the trial, and could finish the Tour in a top ten position, but he won’t be chasing that yellow jersey._

_Quite right, Chris. He’ll leave that for Weber._

_Speaking of Weber, he’s up ahead on the course, riding hard for the final kilometres. You can see even on the TV at home how hard that rain is coming down, and that will only make things more difficult for all the riders. Wet tarmac is always-_

_Oh, and Weber is down hard! That looked nasty, and-_

_And it doesn’t look like he’s getting up, does it? No, he’s clutching his leg, and if we look at the replay showing now he did go very hard into the metal barricades there at the side of the road-_

_Yes, this does look serious for him, and it’s sad to say but I think this is the Tour over for Weber this year! Without him, I wonder whether we’ll see team Mercedes on any of the podiums this Tour._

0-o-0-o-0

Illya races over the finish line and lets himself collapse over the handlebars of his bike as he shudders to a stop on the road. Almost immediately he is surrounded by Tour officials, trying to keep the journalists from getting in the way, but there is still the bright flash of the cameras as they crowd around him. He ignores them in favour of pulling off his helmet and slumping over the bike, trying to catch his breath. Briefly, he wonders why there are so many of them- it’s not as if he’s anyone important.

There’s an exasperated shout from somewhere nearby, and then Illya looks up to see Vitaly, another member of his team, shoving his way through the crowds with his usual tactlessness. He reaches Illya and all but drags him off his bike. “You bastard,” he says, but there’s a grin on his face as he pulls Illya into a bear hug. “You utter bastard.”

“What?” Illya asks, his heart still pounding as he tries to slow his breathing, tries to ignore the cameras going off around him as journalists still crowd him. “What’s going on?”

“Weber crashed,” Vitaly says as he pulls Illya away. Illya keeps hold of his bike as he goes without even thinking about it, dragging it behind him as Vitaly pulls him off towards the team buses and the Mercedes banner. Illya can feel his legs shaking, and he stumbles along behind Vitaly.

“He crashed?” Illya asks. “How?”

“Went down in the rain, and went down hard,” Vitaly says. “He’s out, Illya, he’s out of the Tour. Broken leg.”

Illya blinks. “He’s out?” he asks. The realisations filter through the adrenaline crash that’s beginning to smother him, and he frowns. “We have no leader. We won’t have anything in this Tour.”

Surprisingly, Vitaly just stares at him and looks shocked. “Illya, you utter bastard,” he says. “Have you not seen your time?”

Illya shakes his head. He knows it is good, knows that he ran a good race, but he hadn’t looked at the clock once he crossed the line, doesn’t know where he’s lying in the rankings. With Weber as their team leader, it hadn’t mattered. “Is it good?”

Vitaly stares at him some more as they make it to the team Mercedes bus, cameras still following them all the way. “You haven’t seen it,” he says, his voice shocked. “Illya, you’re in the lead.”

Illya stutters to a stop. “What?”

“You’ve beaten Solo, you were beating Weber before he crashed,” Vitaly says, his words almost tripping over each other in his haste to speak. “Illya, there’s only eight more riders to go and none of them can rival you.”

“What do you mean?” Illya asks, but there’s a swiftly rising hope that’s kindled in his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He didn’t think he’d ever get this chance. He wasn’t expecting to be more than a domestique, exhausting himself every day for their leader because that was his job, and that’s what he was meant to do.

Vitaly’s grin is bright and infectious, and he pulls Illya into another bear hug. “You’re wearing the yellow jersey, you bastard,” he tells him. “You’re riding out tomorrow in the yellow jersey, and we’re going to do everything possible to make sure you keep it.”

There’s a strange feeling settling in Illya’s chest as Vitaly drags him off to the press stand once he’s handed over his bike to the mechanics, talking on and on about throwing the other cyclist out of Illya’s spot now that he’s no longer the leader, how there’s a strategy meeting tonight because everything has changed now, but it might even be for the better, with Weber gone there’s only a few others with a real challenge to Illya’s lead, but Illya can barely catch every third word as he tries to identify the tightness in his chest, the tremble in his hands that is so strange because they’re not shaking out of anger or rage but something entirely different.

_Oh_ , he thinks as they reach the crowd of reporters and journalists, as Vitaly pushes his way through and tugs Illya with him towards the stand where the current leader stays to watch the rest of the race unfold. The previous leader is still there, talking in a low voice to another of his teammates, but Illya barely sees him beyond the Alfa Romeo jacket that does nothing to hide his broad, muscled shoulders. He’s too busy trying to still his hands, to not let the trembling spread out from his chest, the fire trying so hard to burn its way through him.

_Oh_ , he thinks again, at this intangible tangle of hope and delight and fear clawing at his throat, heightened by the last throes of adrenaline still in his veins. _I’ve missed this._

He’s entrenched in his own mind, ignoring Vitaly’s endless talk and trying to quell the treacherous beat of his heart, and he doesn’t realise that the other cyclist hasn’t left the press stand until he’s standing right in front of him.

He recognises him instantly, of course. Napoleon Solo is near legend amongst the cycling community, and only half of it is because of the way he’s climbed up the rankings across the world to become one of the best, winning titles and championships and medals across the world. The other half is down to his reputation, the gossip the tabloids love to splash across the pages of their sports section whenever Solo walks out with a new boyfriend. Illya stopped reading anything to do with Solo’s love life ever since he first saw a picture of the cyclist with a boyfriend and had felt a sick feeling in his stomach.

Now, Solo stares at him, and Illya can’t help but think that his face is much less beautiful with that sneer curling his lips. “You’re in my way,” he says, voice hard without meaning it to be, and he immediately cringes for how petty that sounds.

Solo arches a brow. “Am I?” he asks, faux politeness barely covering the bitterness in his voice. If it were anyone else, then Illya thinks he could sympathise with his position. After all, he has just lost the race lead to a domestique and virtual unknown, and even for a man with a smaller ego that would be a hard blow. But this is Solo, who flaunts his new girlfriends and boyfriends like toys in front of the cameras, who is loud and brash and so _American_  that Illya finds himself grinding his teeth in annoyance whenever he watches one of his interviews. For Solo, Illya thinks he can forgo the sympathy.

“Yes,” Illya says shortly, when he realises he’s been silent too long. “Move, or I make you move.”

“Oh, really?” Solo asks in a drawl, his voice pitched low enough that the various microphones around them can’t pick it up. “Sounds like an exciting start to the Tour. We can turn this into a wrestling match if you really want to. Think you’ll end up on top, or do you prefer being on the bottom?”

Illya’s cheeks are burning, and he steps up into Solo’s space. “I beat you,” he says, his voice sharp. “This is my place.”

“For now, Kuryakin,” Solo says in a sing-song voice as he taps Illya on the chest, his fingers leaving burning trails across Illya’s skin, even through the jacket he’s wearing and the lycra of his cycling shirt underneath. “Only for now.”

Vitaly nudges him as Solo is pulled away by his teammate. “Ignore him,” he mutters to Illya as he pushes him up onto the stand. “We are going to thrash the floor with him over this Tour, and wipe that smug smirk off his face.”

Illya stares at him. “I think you got your expressions mixed up,” he says. “It’s wipe the floor, not thrash it.” At that, Vitaly just laughs, and slings an arm over Illya’s shoulders as they turn to the press clamouring for Illya’s attention. Illya swallows heavily. He looks out at the assembled press, at the microphones being held out by eager hands, listens to the questions being shouted at him in at least three languages, and he thinks: _this is terrifying, and I don’t want to let it go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just the beginning, and there's going to be plenty of snark and rivalry between Napoleon and Illya before they get anywhere (but keep the tags in mind, this is going to end happily because I couldn't bear anything else).
> 
> Like I said at the beginning, hopefully all the relevant details of the Tour are going to be explained as the story goes along, and you should get the hang of the most important details pretty quickly, but let me know if you're not sure what's going on in the comments!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the great response to only the first chapter, everyone! My brain is pretty much mush at the moment, I spent all day revising and my brain is now skipping over transformation matrices and molecular symmetry operations. Group Theory is hell, kids.
> 
> Anyway, here's another chapter! There's a mention/brief description of a crash and resultant injuries in this chapter, but it's all in the past. The boys still don't really like each other, and it's going to take a few more chapters before they get over their rivalry, but Gaby turns up in this chapter and she's awesome.
> 
> I feel like I'm going to be doing a fair bit of explaining for the first few chapters, for worry that people won't understand bits to do with the running of the Tour. In case it isn't clear, Napoleon and Illya's teams are called Alfa Romeo and Mercedes because those are their big sponsors. I haven't used any real life teams, like Sky, in this fic.

“Give it two days,” Sanders says, leaning back against the wall next to the TV. It’s hot in the team bus, but none of the Alfa Romeo team seem to care that Sanders looks uncomfortable in too many layers as they dig into the food on offer. “Kuryakin will crack under the pressure, and the yellow jersey will be yours again. He’s a fucking Russki, he can’t be that hard to beat.”

“The cold war ended thirty years ago, Sanders,” Napoleon points out around a mouthful of pasta. There’s a spread of food across the table, enough that it would look impossible to finish to anyone outside the Tour, but Napoleon knows the pile of food will only get larger as the Tour continues, and they’ll still finish it all. “I don’t think you can call them that anymore.” Sanders, predictably, doesn’t listen to him, and Napoleon rolls his eyes as the trainer continues on his rant.

“Look, I don’t like Kuryakin,” Napoleon says when Sanders pauses for breath. “I mean, have you seen him? Doesn’t even look like he should be a cyclist, and he was rude enough to me earlier. But I’ll beat him fair and square, and not because of whatever weird cold war hang ups you still have.” There’s a snort of laughter from a few teammates, and Sanders glares at all of them in general.

“Take this seriously, Solo,” he snaps. “With Weber gone, this should be your Tour, and now Kuryakin has gone and thrown a Russian-sized wrench into the works. This is serious for all of us if we want Solo to wear that yellow jersey in Paris.”

“Oh, and you’d know the size of a Russian’s _tool_ , would you?” Napoleon asks with a wink, just to see Sanders get flustered. There are groans around the bus, and the cyclist sitting next to Napoleon punches him in the arm. “It was far too good an opportunity to pass up,” Napoleon says to him reproachfully, rubbing his arm.

“It’s not helping,” his teammate points out. “This is meant to be a strategy session, not a bitch fest. Calm your tits, both of you, and let’s actually work out how to beat Kuryakin.”

“Calm your _tits_?” someone else asks as Napoleon grins at Sanders looking flustered again. “What tits?”

“Don’t get all misogynistic on me, mate,” the teammate says. “Men have tits as well, and being ignorant of that just makes us more prone to late diagnosis of breast cancer.” Even Sanders breaks from his rant to stare at him, and the cyclist shrugs. “What?” he asks. “Some of us paid attention at school.”

“I don’t think any of us did,” someone says slowly. “Isn’t that why we’re here? Because none of us could have made it into university with all the bunking off we did?” There are laughs around the bus, and Sanders looks like a vein is about to burst in his forehead.

“Speak for yourself,” Napoleon says, leaning back on the couch with a grin. “I’m halfway through a degree in Art History.”

“Yeah, well we can’t all be you, Solo,” another says, with a long-suffering look from a few others. “Besides, art history sounds like an awful subject to study.”

“There are a lot of drawings of naked women involved,” Napoleon points out with a grin. “And men, for that matter. So it’s never too dull.”

There’s a cough from Sanders, who looks like he’s about to burst. “Gentlemen, and I use that term very loosely when it comes to you, Solo,” he says. “Can we please get back on track? Solo, I’m assuming that you actually do want to win this Tour?” At Napoleon’s nod, Sanders finally gets to turn to the presentation that has been up on the TV this entire time.

“It’s an easy enough day tomorrow,” he says, putting up a map on the screen, “only 180km, and fairly flat, but that doesn’t mean we can become complacent. Solo, you start at the front and you finish at the front. Chances are there’ll be breakaways in the early kilometres of the race, but Solo, no fucking about and following them out just because you want to piss Kuryakin off. If Kuryakin doesn’t move, then you don’t move.”

“What if Kuryakin fucks up and I think I should move?” Napoleon asks. “Or what if I want to break away?”

Sanders levels him with a glare. “No theatrics,” he tells Napoleon. “Oleg is running the Mercedes team, and he’s not an idiot, even if Kuryakin might be. If Kuryakin breaks away from the _peloton_ , then you go after him, but other than that we will sit at the front of the group and control it.”

“And the final kilometres?” another asks. “Isn’t that going to be up to the sprinters?”

“Not for this stage,” Sanders says. “This isn’t a sprint finish tomorrow, and there are no points up for grabs for the green jersey contenders. It’s an uphill finish, so be careful on that, Solo. We all know what Kuryakin is like on a climb.”

There are a few snorts of amusement around the bus, but they’re tempered and uneasy. Most of them are probably thinking about the Tour three years ago, that mess of a stage last year up in the mountains. Weber had been battling for the yellow jersey and had crashed just before the steep climb up to the finish, bringing his domestique Kuryakin, a virtual unknown, down with him. Everyone had watched the replay afterwards, if only to see if it was really true what had been whispered between cyclists as soon as they crossed the finish line.

Napoleon remembers sitting in the team bus with the rest of the team, watching the replay on the TV as Kuryakin, blood sheeting down his face and across his silver Mercedes shirt, scrambled to his feet and pulled Weber up with him, pushing Weber onto his own, less damaged bike. He still remembers the shock at seeing Kuryakin then grab a new bike from the team car and take off after Weber. Kuryakin had not only caught up, riding uphill the entire way, but had led Weber back to the group ahead of them and gotten him over the finish line in third place.

Napoleon still remembers riding hard for the finish line on that day, up over the handlebars of his bike, and seeing bright red out of the corner of his eye. He’d faltered when he’d realised it was Kuryakin leading Weber up, keeping pace with him despite the blood all over his face, and then he’d faltered again when Kuryakin had pulled away in the final few hundred metres, letting Weber take over and race for the finish.

The next day it had been the talk of every sports section in every newspaper, images of Kuryakin limping away from his bike plastered across the pages, most of his shirt covered in blood from a gash on his head. Weber had been fine, had gone on to win the Tour that year, and Kuryakin had faded back into the background of the Tour, but no cyclist who was there had forgotten that day easily.

The strategy session takes three hours as they change everything to account for what they know about Kuryakin and what his strategy might be. “Remember, Oleg and I go way back,” Sanders says at one point, as they take a break to dig into yet more food that has arrived. Napoleon has already stolen the container of carbonara pasta for himself, and rolls his eyes at Sanders’ dramatic declaration. The way the trainer goes on, he makes it sound like him and Oleg were on the two sides of the cold war. Napoleon isn’t particularly fond of Sanders, and Oleg seems like a nasty enough piece of work with the way he’s been caught on camera screaming at the Mercedes team occasionally, but Napoleon highly doubts they could have been spies.

Finally, even Sanders gets bored of telling Napoleon not to fuck up. “We’re up at six tomorrow morning, so you can all eat something before you warm up, and not pass out on me,” he says. “Get some sleep, and don’t fuck anything up on the first night of the Tour.” There’s a laugh around the bus, and then everyone is getting to their feet and heading for the door, more than ready to get to their hotel rooms and crash. Napoleon is, as usual, last one out.

“Solo?” Sanders calls as he’s heading out the door. Napoleon pauses and glances over his shoulder. Sanders is staring at his laptop that’s replaying a clip of Kuryakin that they watched earlier, one of him leading Weber up the Col de Peyresourde two years ago, but he looks up when Solo pauses.

“We’re going to run him down,” Sanders said. “He has a ten second lead, and in this game, that’s nothing. We’re going to run him down and take this for you.”

Napoleon considers his words for a moment. “I do wish you didn’t have to make everything into some cold war saga,” he says eventually, a quirk of a smile on his lips. “But don’t worry your pretty head about it, Sanders. I want this yellow jersey, and I’m not going to let Kuryakin take it from me.”

0-o-0-o-0

When Illya steps up into the team bus, it takes him a moment to work out what is going on, and then he can feel his cheeks burning as he realises that the applause is for him. Vitaly claps him on the back, shoving him into the bus and towards the couches as he comes up the steps behind him. “Everyone give it up for the yellow jersey!” he shouts.

Oleg, standing at the front of the bus by the TV screen, is the only one who doesn’t look happy, but then Oleg never looks happy. “Okay, everyone calm down,” he says eventually. “Yes, well done Kuryakin, very nice, but you now have to keep that jersey, and Solo is breathing down your neck. Ten seconds, that’s all you have over him, and you have to widen that lead if you want to keep it.” He turns on the screen and pulls up a map of France. “Let’s get to work.”

Illya gets piled with food almost as soon as he sits down, and he picks at it as he studies the map of tomorrow’s route. “Weber sends his love, by the way,” Vitaly murmurs to Illya as Oleg says something about the stage tomorrow. “He’s upset about breaking his leg and being out the Tour, but he says if anyone can win, it’s you.”

Oleg breaks off to glare at them. “Anything valuable to add?” he asks, and Vitaly just grins, shaking his head. “If you don’t have any valuable insight to help our new team leader, then you can keep quiet,” Oleg says, and he turns back to the screen.

“Solo is going to be your competition, this Tour,” he says to Illya. “There are others, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to rival you like Solo is going to. He’s smart, Kuryakin, and won’t be above trying to trick you into breaking away from the _peloton_ to exhaust you, and then stealing the stage out from underneath you. Tomorrow, you sit on his wheel, and we control the _peloton_ from the beginning.”

“And if Alfa Romeo decide to control it?” Illya asks. “We just sit behind them instead?”

“We can’t spend the whole race fighting over the front of the _peloton_ ,” another rider points out. “We don’t get on with Alfa Romeo anyway, and fighting over the _peloton_ on the first proper day of the Tour isn’t going to help.”

“We don’t need to get on with Alfa Romeo,” Illya says, thinking of the sneer that had been on Solo’s lips when he’d seen him, the set of his shoulders underneath that black jacket. “We just need to beat them.”

Oleg smiles for probably the first time that day. “I like that,” he says, pointing at Illya. “We go to take control of the _peloton_ first thing tomorrow. Let any ambitious idiots break away if they want to, we can always catch them later if they become too threatening. If Alfa Romeo try to take control, then we fight them for it. Kuryakin, you’re not a domestique anymore, so do try not to act like one. Leave this to your domestiques, and sit on Solo’s wheel.”

“If he sits on mine?” Illya asks, turning over the various possibilities in his mind for tomorrow. He doesn’t particularly want to have Solo riding behind him for the entire race, especially at the beginning where nobody is really pushing it and riders often start talking amongst each other. He knows it will only be a distraction.

Oleg shrugs. “There are worse places he could decide to stay for the stage,” he says. “Just deal with it, Kuryakin, and try not to piss him off too much.” Illya tries to stop his cheeks from burning at that, and he only just manages it by turning his attention to the food on the table, and digging into some pasta. It’s cold by now, and doesn’t taste particularly good, but he makes himself eat all of it anyway. Sometimes, he gets sick of how much food they have to eat during the Tour. He swears it’s all he does when he’s not on the bike.

“Look,” Oleg says to him at one point. “Nobody ever keeps the yellow jersey from the first day to the last. At some point, Kuryakin, you will lose it to Solo. He’s quick when descending, and tricky to predict, and he will catch you out at some point. But you know what you’re like in the mountains. Everyone does, and that is where we will steal this jersey out from under his nose.”

He steps outside for some air, an hour later, and runs straight into another person. There’s a delighted shriek, and then his arms are full as Gaby launches herself at him. “You’re incredible, you know that right?” she says, locking her arms around his neck.

Illya pulls back enough to give her a fond smile. “Chop shop girl,” he says fondly. “How are bikes?”

“Oh, they’re fine,” Gaby says, tucking a few loose strands of hair back into her bun as Illya sets her on her feet. She’s covered in grease and oil from working on the bikes, jacket already worn and frayed. “You need to stop being so eager with your brakes on sharp turns, though, or you’re going to go through all the tyres we have.”

Illya snorts. “Doubt that would ever happen with you as mechanic,” he points out. “We have whole truck of spare tyres.” He glances up at the other team buses still parked there, at the Alfa Romeo bus on the other side of the square. “What do you think of Solo?”

Gaby shrugs. “American,” he says, like that answers everything. It probably does, to someone who grew up in East Berlin like Gaby. “Smug, vain, a good rider but thinks he’s better. You can beat him.” She studies him for a long moment. “You do know that you can beat him, right? You’re good, Illya, you’re great, and you can win this Tour. You’ve earned it.”

Illya shrugs. “I can try,” he says, and Gaby fixes him with a look.

“Has Oleg been saying stuff again?” she asks. “Illya, you need to get out from under him. He’s not good for you.”

“He’s the best chance I have at winning,” Illya reminds her. “Of beating Solo. Maybe afterwards, if other teams are interested…” He trails off, and shrugs. “Maybe. But I need to get through this first.”

“Tell me if you need to go back on your medication,” Gaby says seriously. “Don’t risk it just for a chance at winning.”

Illya rolls his eyes. This is a familiar enough refrain from her, throughout all the years he’s known her, long before she became Mercedes’ lead mechanic, and he’s used to brushing it off. “I can’t be here if I’m on medication,” he points out. “I’ll be fine. It’s not too bad at the moment.”

Gaby doesn’t look convinced, but then Illya doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to convince her of anything, so he doesn’t mind. “I have to get back in there,” he says after a few moments of silence. “Still have hours of strategy to go.”

Gaby nods. “I’ll see you at dinner tonight, okay?” she says, and it’s not really a question. Illya just nods, and resigns himself to her way of making sure he’s okay, which is to ply him with food until he’s too full and tired to notice what she’s really asking him. She presses a kiss to his cheek, winks at him, and then disappears back to her actual job.

Illya watches her go, and then without meaning to his gaze flicks to the Alfa Romeo bus, black and red against the old stone of the square in Lyon. As he watches, the door swings open and Solo steps out, a bottle of water already at his lips. Illya watches the long line of his throat as he tips his head back, and then Solo looks across the square and catches Illya’s gaze.

Neither of them looks away. Illya is suddenly conscious that he’s wearing the yellow jersey now after the presentation, Mercedes in big letters across his chest. He hadn’t bothered to throw a jacket on when stepping outside, some part of him revelling in the feeling of wearing it and not wanting to cover it up for as long as possible. He knows Solo is staring at it now, and his lingering gaze makes him cross his arms across his chest, a scowl on his face.

Solo starts slightly, as if coming back into himself. He downs the last dregs of his water bottle, leaning against the railings of the steps, and Illya can’t keep his eyes away from him. Solo crushes the water bottle in his hand, and then winks at Illya before turning to go back inside.

Illya stares at the spot that Solo had stood in for far too long before he snaps out of it, and goes back to his team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first, Gaby's comments to Illya about medication will all be explained in the fullness of time. His attitude is not something you should lightly adopt- he is an athlete, and especially in the Tour the cyclists are willing to wreck themselves for a chance of winning, which is not very healthy. His situation is also more complicated than just this chapter makes out, and it will all be explained. If you are considering not taking medication, for whatever reason, please talk to a doctor or therapist first.
> 
> So I also forgot to mention last chapter that the Tour can actually be pretty dangerous- they're travelling at up to 80kmph (thats nearly 50mph) and from what I've read, can get up to 81mph going downhill in the mountains, and the only protective gear they're wearing is a crash helmet. So Illya and Weber's crash is completely realistic for the Tour, and not the only crash in this story...  
> One of the plot points in this story came about when I was watching the Tour last year and saw Richie Porte's crash [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnc4QvDivXY). Sorry for the weird music that comes with that video, it's the best one I could find on YouTube that didn't have some annoying person talking over the top.
> 
> Oh yeah, and the cyclists really do eat that much food. They're cycling up to 200km a day, whenever they're not on a bike they're basically eating or drinking or sleeping.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Next chapter will be up in a few days, depending on how much the last week of uni before exams completely fries my brain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did nearly nine hours of intense martial arts in three days and I am officially one big walking bruise. Honestly, it looks awful. My elbow in particular has turned a lovely shade of purple.
> 
> Anyway, here's another chapter! Thanks for all the great responses to this fic so far, each comment really does put a massive smile on my face. Please forgive any inaccuracies with the few lines of French in this chapter, it's mostly from my own (iffy) grasp of French and a bit of help from Google translate. Translations will be in the end notes, but aren't necessary to get the gist of what's going on.

Illya bundles himself up in two jackets the next morning as they start warming up. It’s cold, still, the fog not yet burned away by the sun, and most of the street where the buses are parked, stationary bikes set up in front of them for the teams to warm up, are still cast in shadow. Gaby gives him a sympathetic look as he tries to hide his face in the collar of his jacket, but doesn’t give up any of her coffee to him. Illya tries not to be offended, seeing as caffeine is a banned substance on the Tour anyway, but he’s not a great morning person.

The Alfa Romeo bus is down the street, an obnoxious car parked in front of the warm up area to shield the team from prying eyes. Still, Illya can see Solo if he leans back slightly, under the pretence of stretching out his back. He looks relaxed, chatting with one of his teammates with a grin on his face, and Illya feels a brief stab of something shoot through his chest.

Oleg raps on the handlebars in front of him. “Stop staring at the enemy and focus on yourself,” he snaps. Illya doesn’t take it personally, seeing as Oleg is always sharp the morning of each stage. It’s only going to get worse as the Tour goes on, all twenty-one stages and three weeks of it until they finally reach Paris. He just nods, and focuses back down on the handlebars in front of him.

All too soon they’re calling the riders forwards, and there’s a flurry of movement as they get shoved off the stationary bikes and onto their racing bikes, and then it’s an agonising chaos as the hundred and eighty or so riders get assembled at the start line. Illya grits his teeth and tries not to grimace through it, because at least he, wearing the yellow jersey, gets sent right to the front. Napoleon is nearby, that black and red Alfa Romeo shirt constantly in the corner of his eye, but he ignores it and focuses on the beat of his heart, on the tarmac stretching out in front of him.

The first kilometre of the race isn’t a race, anyway, so when they pull away Illya doesn’t do anything but keep pace at the front of the _peloton._ He can see the silver shirts of his team moving out of the corner of his eye, interspersed with black and red as the two teams try to stake their claim on the front of the group. It only takes a few minutes before the one kilometre banner comes into view, and as soon as it does Illya can feel the tension rise in the _peloton._ If he was kidding himself, he’d say he could almost hear the grip tighten on handlebars around him, the jump in heart rate as they eat up the tarmac in front of them. The official start to the race is at that banner, for some reason Illya has never quite worked out, rather than the actual start. It’s just one of those many things that those who ride in the Tour have to live with.

Almost as soon as the flag drops at the banner, up ahead in the official’s car, five riders sprint away from the front of the _peloton_. Illya watches them go, mentally reviewing each one of them. None are serious contenders for taking the yellow jersey, and it’s not worth it, trying to chase them. Besides, he has Oleg sternly reminding him of the plan through his earpiece, and Illya doesn’t want to risk his wrath so early in the Tour.

There’s movement around him, and he looks over his shoulder to see three of his teammates coming up. It’s a foreign concept, that they are meant to overtake and lead him for most of the stage, letting him conserve his energy and ride in his slipstream, but he lets them past and slots onto a hind wheel. Almost immediately Alfa Romeo are beside them, and as Illya glances over his shoulder he sees Solo sitting smugly on his wheel, a quick grin on his face as he realises Illya has seen him.

“Going to make this interesting for me?” he calls out to him, and Illya, caught up in the adrenaline of the real start to the Tour, just scoffs.

“You wish,” he shouts back over the wind rushing past them. Napoleon just smirks, and stays right behind him.

What the commentators don’t say on the TV and what the sports sections in every newspaper don’t mention is just how boring most of the day is. Judging by the speed they’re currently travelling at, it will be another four hours before they reach the finish. It’s a long time to be cycling, and not for the first time Illya is thankful for the dedication running through his bones that makes the long hours bearable.

He can just about hear Solo behind him, chatting to one of his domestiques. As the minutes tick by Solo seems to entertain every person around him, including some of the Mercedes team. Illya can hardly blame them. Solo is enchanting, if not careful enough.

Some of his team talk to Illya, but they give up after a while. Even as a domestique, Illya knew he had a reputation of being unapproachable, but there’s so much more resting on his shoulders now, and he doesn’t want to put up with the usual Tour gossip that gets passed through the _peloton_. He stays silent and concentrates on the road, on the feel of the bike beneath him on the smooth tarmac. He’s only thankful there aren’t any cobblestone roads until later in the Tour.

“So,” Solo drawls as he draws up next to Illya at one point. “Russian, right?”

“Obviously,” Illya grits out. “Now go away.”

“Oh, no need to be so dramatic,” Solo says, edging his bike closer to Illya’s. “We barely know anything about each other.”

“Do we have to?” Illya asks, and immediately regrets asking as Solo grins. On his face, it doesn’t look kind.

“This whole Tour is being set up into a two-man race,” he says. “And you’re a virtual unknown. Go on then, Kuryakin. What makes you think you have a hope in hell of beating me?”

“I’m not an arrogant arse,” Illya snaps immediately. He regrets it only a moment later as he sees Solo’s brow arch, a brief flicker of surprise and something else on his face before it’s covered by a sneer.

“I see,” Solo says. “Well then, I hope you don’t mind this arrogant arse taking that yellow jersey off your back. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon I’ll leave you in the dust, and you’ll be nobody once again.”

Illya grits his teeth and focuses on his bike, not ramming Solo off the road. “As long as you don’t mind this nobody taking it back from you,” he spits at him. Solo grins, sharp and quick, and Illya makes himself look up at the road and not at him.

There’s a bend up ahead, and Illya accelerates slightly into it, letting the bike skid just enough under him that he has to lean and put out an elbow to stabilise himself. If that elbow happens to drive into Solo, well, Illya is sure he can cope with that. The familiar Mercedes shirts swallow him up as Solo drops back slightly, and Illya quietly revels in the glare that Solo gives him.

0-o-0-o-0

_The first official stage of this year’s Tour de France, and already we are seeing animosity between the two riders fighting over the yellow jersey. Kuryakin, the current race leader, is only ten seconds ahead of Solo._

_Solo, of course, has more than enough ability to rival Kuryakin for that jersey. He’s spent most of this stage so far sitting on Kuryakin’s wheel, but we’ve seen him try to overtake, drawing alongside Kuryakin for a few moments, and then Kuryakin seemingly lose his balance around a bend and jostle Solo. Do you think, Nicole, that it was an accident?_

_It’s hard to say, Chris, but I doubt it. From the looks of it Solo was talking to Kuryakin for a few moments beforehand. It’ll be interesting to ask them after the race what happened there._

_Only a few kilometres left in the stage, and at the moment everyone is wondering what Solo and Kuryakin are going to do. They’re in the group of twenty-five riders who have broken away from the peloton and are racing for the finish. At the moment, Solo and Kuryakin still have a few of their domestiques left, but no doubt one of them will break from the group and head for the finish line, alone if they must._

_My bet is on Kuryakin. He’s a virtual unknown compared to Solo, and he only has ten seconds of a lead. He’ll want to extend that as much as possible, and I’m sure he thinks he has something to prove._

_I don’t know, Solo seemed pretty put out yesterday when denied the yellow jersey. That has to be a blow to his pride, surrendering it to Kuryakin, and I’m sure he wants it back._

_Oh, of course, but remember there is an uphill finish to the end of this first stage. We all know what Kuryakin is like on the climb._

_For new viewers who aren’t quite sure what we’re talking about, just put into Google ‘Kuryakin, Weber, Tour de France, crash in mountains’ and you’ll see what we mean. Kuryakin is a powerhouse when climbing, and that will give him an edge in this stage finish._

_They’ve come into the final kilometre, and with just one domestique each in front of them, Kuryakin and Solo are neck and neck on either side of the road. Someone is going to have to move, and soon._

_And it looks like it’s Kuryakin who makes the first move as they round the corner, with just four hundred metres to go! He’s out from behind his domestique and riding hard-_

_-and Solo has answered his challenge! Other riders are hanging onto their tail, but can’t seem to present any challenge to Kuryakin or Solo as they race for the line. It looks like Kuryakin has the edge, but now-_

_-it’s Solo, Solo is ahead by inches as they round the final bend and see the finish line in front of them. Kuryakin is battling hard and yes, he’s gaining on Solo-_

_-they’re neck and neck in the final hundred metres, but-_

_-oh, Kuryakin is pulling ahead, he’s a whole wheel in front of Solo now, and Solo is responding but it’s too little too late, there’s not enough time, and it’s Kuryakin, Kuryakin takes the stage!_

_Well look at that! Kuryakin has his first ever stage win, and he does it in the yellow jersey, no less. He’s obviously pretty pleased with himself, given that grin on his face. He and Solo were well within three seconds of each other, so are counted as the same group and given the same time for the stage-_

_-that, for the new viewers, was introduced to prevent larger groups battling for fractions of a second and causing injuries in the final dash for the line-_

_-but the winner gains a ten second time bonus, and the rider in second only gets six seconds, so Kuryakin has extended his lead over Solo by four seconds. In this Tour, I think he’ll take all that he can get._

_Certainly, this is looking to be a close run between the two of them. Look at Kuryakin now, looking exhausted as he slumps over his bike. Solo doesn’t look much better, but-_

_-oh, he heads past Kuryakin and there’s some sort of exchange there that doesn’t look too pleasant! They’re speaking too low for us to hear, but there’s no mistaking the expression on Solo’s face, or the returning glare from Kuryakin. Looks like there’s no love lost between those two._

_That’s a shame, but it’s going to make for an interesting Tour. These are certainly two to watch._

0-o-0-o-0

Illya swipes the bottle of water from an offering hand and drains half of it, pouring the rest over his head. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he had to dig deeper than he thought he would have to, in order to beat Solo in the final few hundred metres. Solo, with his infuriating grin and comments and the way he looks so beautiful on a bike, a masterpiece compared to Illya, who knows he’s not built for cycling, who has had to claw his way up to even be here.

As if summoned by his thoughts, he sees the black and red of Solo’s lycra shirt as he walks past a few metres away, accompanied by some of his teammates and their trainer Sanders. Sanders looks annoyed, and is talking in a low voice to Solo, who looks unconcerned. Illya knows it’s a front. He knows that Solo can’t possibly be unconcerned about this, given the low mutter of derision he’d heard when Solo had gone past him earlier that had him answering back with some comment made in the throes of adrenaline, but he has to admit it is masterful.

Solo looks up and around the area, and his gaze settles on Illya. Illya is high enough on the adrenaline of the win that he doesn’t think twice before letting a slow, steady grin curl his lips. Solo glares at him, and makes an aborted movement towards him before being tugged away by a teammate.

There are people everywhere, a kaleidoscope of team colours around him, but he spots the silver Mercedes shirts a few moments before half his team crash into him, yelling over each other in delight over the stage win, high on adrenaline. Illya endures Vitaly hanging off his shoulders for a whole minute before he shakes them off.

“You absolute bastard,” Vitaly says, punching Illya in the arm, but there’s a massive grin on his face. The rest of his team are gathered around him, grins on their faces and voices spilling over across each other. Illya can pick out a few words in at least two different languages. Vitaly is talking his ear off in Russian about tomorrow, about how they’re going to shut Alfa Romeo out of the race, how they’re not going to let Solo get close to him. Someone else is talking in French, too excited to try and translate into English, and Illya has to concentrate to work out what he’s actually talking about.

Oleg shoves through the crowd around him, and Illya finds himself straightening up into something resembling standing to attention, the dregs of the army still in his bones. “Yes, yes, we’re all deeply proud,” he says, and Illya thinks there might actually be a hint of sincerity in his voice. “Kuryakin, get over to the press and don’t fuck it up. Don’t talk about Solo if you’re going to fuck it up, don’t talk about taking Weber’s place if you’re going to fuck it up. Just don’t-”

“Fuck it up?” Illya asks. “Understood. What can I talk about?”

Oleg glares at him. “I don’t take idiots onto this team,” he says. “So I know you aren’t an idiot. Talk to the press, tell them how excited you are for the rest of the Tour, talk to them about the stage but for the love of all that’s holy, don’t say anything about that jostle against Solo that we both know wasn’t quite an accident. If asked, say you lost your balance a bit, it was an honest mistake, and then change the subject. Don’t fuck this up.”

Illya refrains from rolling his eyes, and lets himself be dragged off towards the cameras and the microphones that are shoved in his face as soon as he’s within striking distance. As he’s always done, ever since he’s received any recognition for his sport, he turns to the Russian correspondent first. She’s new to the Tour, and not someone he recognises, but it’s still nice to be able to speak in his own tongue again, and the other reporters shut up when he does.

All of them ask variations on a theme: how does it feel to wear the yellow jersey, to win your first stage whilst wearing the yellow jersey, to be suddenly thrust from an unknown into the spotlight, are you nervous for the rest of the Tour, do you think you can keep the jersey out of Solo’s hands? Illya grimaces inwardly at the last one, well aware of Oleg lurking nearby, and tries to be as diplomatic as possible.

“What about that jostle on the road?” one reporter asks. “And that apparent exchange between you and Solo after the finish? Is there bad blood between the two of you?”

Illya tries not to grimace. “I don’t know what impression Solo has given to you,” he says carefully. “But we are just rival cyclists in this race. That jostle was a complete accident when I unbalanced around the corner. It could have been anyone next to me at the time, Solo just happened to be there.”

“He said that he was looking forwards to the challenge,” the reporter tells him, flicking through a notebook to check the quote. “But that he wasn’t sure you’d have the stamina to keep up with him, and that, and I quote, he doesn’t know if you could even last fourteen seconds.” There’s a blush on her face as she reads that off her notebook, and Illya can almost imagine the self-satisfied look on Solo’s face when he had said that. Why everything has to turn into innuendos is beyond him.

He pauses, debating inwardly the merits of saying what he wants to say, and how much Oleg will kill him if he does. “Judging by the gossip in the tabloids,” he says, throwing caution to the wind. “I think that Solo may be overestimating his own prowess.” There are delighted looks on the reporters’ faces. “I’ll meet whatever challenge he sets,” Illya tells them. “He can wait until the mountains to make judgements on my skills.” There’s a quick grin on his face, and he knows that most of the networks will be following the soundbite with that infamous clip of him after that crash with Weber, three years ago.

“If that is all,” he says. “There is a podium I must be on.” The reporters shout more questions after him but he ignores them, and they soon focus in on another target.

Someone brushes past him, and Illya is automatically halfway through apologising when he sees the set of the shoulders beneath the red and black jacket, the slicked back black hair and jawline sharp enough to cut diamonds. “Oh, terribly sorry,” Solo drawls, taking a step back and looking Illya up and down. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Perhaps if you paid more attention,” Illya says. “Maybe then you would not be fourteen seconds behind.”

Solo arches a brow. “Oh, really?” he asks. “Well, I’m sure I can pay more attention to you on that bike tomorrow. It’s not like looking at you is such a hardship, even if you do look like the opposite of what a cyclist should be.”

Illya just returns Solo’s look, and ignores the small part of him that is eager to rise to the bait, to beat Solo at his own game. “Well, at least that makes it easier for you,” he says. “Sitting behind me the entire length of this Tour.”

Solo smirks. “Who says I’ll stay there?” he asks. “As nice as the view is. No, I think I’ll be having that yellow jersey sooner rather than later. Fourteen seconds is not very long at all, as I’m sure you know.”

Illya just stares at him, holding his gaze, and Solo shrugs. “See you on the road tomorrow,” he says, and turns away to one of his teammates, who had been waiting out the entire exchange with a long-suffering look on his face. Solo rolls his eyes.

“ _ _Je ne vais pas pouvoir supporter Kuryakin tout le Tour__ ,” he says, glancing back over his shoulder at Illya and winking slowly. “ _ _Il est beau mais insupportable! Je voudrais prendre le maillot jaune dès maintenant, mais il est toujours sur mon chemin. Et il est complètement...comment ça se dit? Détraqué.__

_“ _Attends deux jours__ _,_ ” his teammate says, an arm over Napoleon’s shoulders. “ _E_ _t le maillot jaune sera à toi. Ignore le russe._ _.”_ Solo nods, and looks over at Illya again, a smirk on his lips. Illya can feel his cheeks burning, and Solo obviously thinks that he didn’t understand a word of what he just said.

Illya acts on impulse and turns to the reporters still tailing him, hoping to catch an interaction between him and Solo. He recognises one of the reporters as from the French news, and catches his eye. The reporter gets out a question in halting English, and Illya smiles. “ _Je peux parler en Français,_ ” he replies, making sure Solo can hear him. “ _Si_ _tu préfères_ _.”_

He answers the question quickly, in near perfect French, and turns to see Solo looking at him in surprise. Solo is just a few seconds too slow to school his expression, and Illya smirks. “You can get back on your horse now, Cowboy,” he says, and he brushes past him with a grin on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French translations:
> 
> _"Je ne vais pas pouvoir supporter Kuryakin tout le Tour. Il est beau mais insupportable! Je voudrais prendre le maillot jaune dès maintenant, mais il est toujours sur mon chemin. Et il est complètement...comment ça se dit? Détraqué."_ : I cannot deal with Kuryakin for the whole of the Tour. He is impossible, even if he is handsome. I want the yellow jersey now, but he is always in my way. And he is absolutely, how do you say, crazy.
> 
> _Attends deux jours, et le maillot jaune sera à toi. Ignore le russe."_ : Two days. And then the yellow jersey, it will be yours. You have to ignore the Russian.
> 
> _Je peux parler en Français, si tu préfères."_ : I can speak in French, if you prefer.
> 
> Edit: Thank you so much to TerresDeBrume for fixing my French!
> 
> There won't be that much French in many of the chapters at all! I was more using it here as a plot device, so I could have Illya call Napoleon 'Cowboy' for the first time. There's going to be a few more chapters of rivalry before things start to change...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been doing more martial arts and am still a walking bruise- I was revising and had just chucked on some ratty clothes to be comfy, and went to the stops when I realised I had no food (typical student life). Anyway, I went out to the shops and was halfway round when I realised why I was getting a few funny looks- said ratty clothes showed quite a few of the bruises down my arms, and it did look suspiciously like someone had grabbed me (technically they had, but it was all in the fun of martial arts). So that was fun.
> 
> Anyway, have a new chapter! The French in last chapter has been fixed by the wonderful TerresDeBrume, so thank you so much to him! The rivalry is still ongoing, it's going to take a little while longer until the boys start to sort things out...

Predictably, Sanders starts in on him as soon as Napoleon sets foot in the bus. Napoleon briefly squeezes his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose and pushing down all that frustration that had welled up since Kuryakin pulled ahead of him in those final metres and took the stage win, since he saw him up on that podium after the time trial wearing that yellow jersey. He’s not egotistical enough to hate the man just because he’s currently beating him, but he can’t help disliking him. He knows that the jostle earlier wasn’t an accident, that Kuryakin is too good a rider to become unbalanced on a corner like that, and that pisses him off.

Napoleon lets his thoughts wander as Sanders goes on at him, at all of them, over today’s race. He didn’t start this Tour disliking Kuryakin; he didn’t really know him before he took the yellow jersey, not beyond three minutes of replay that became infamous in the cycling world and the glimpses of him on the road over the years in the Tour. He isn’t too fond of Kuryakin at the moment, that’s true, but more than that he’s curious. He doesn’t know him, and for some reason he wants to.

Kuryakin has come from nowhere, seems to have risen up from one kind of obscurity to another to be picked for Mercedes five years ago, but it’s taken Weber crashing for him to come into his own. Napoleon can’t help but wonder why someone with as much potential as him was content to be a domestique for five years.

Last night he had gone back, digging through archive footage of the Tour de France over the past five years to search for Kuryakin. The man was the final domestique to ride for Weber, and the Mercedes leader before him, nearly every time. He was always in the top twenty of riders, and yet nobody noticed him. Nobody had looked at him and thought he could do better than a domestique, and from the looks of it, Kuryakin had never asked.

Napoleon knows he has enough of an ego that he would never be content to sit in the shadows like that, and he wants to know why it took Kuryakin so long, and his team leader crashing out of the Tour, to wear the yellow jersey. He can’t help it, he’s curious by nature. It’s what got him in trouble so much as a child.

Sanders snaps his fingers in front of Napoleon’s face, and he falls abruptly out of his thoughts. “Were you listening to a word of that?” Sanders spits.

Napoleon looks up at him. “Was any of it important?” he asks back.

He sees the moment that Sanders thinks about smacking him across the face, the twitch in his hand, and he holds Sanders’ gaze and tilts his head back to bare his throat. He knows Sanders won’t actually do it. He’s good at reading people.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” someone says. “Solo, don’t be an arse and pay attention. Sanders, lay off him. It’s not his fault that Kuryakin is fucking insane whenever we hit any sort of climb.”

Sanders fixes Napoleon with a glare, but steps away. “Let’s get down to strategy,” he says gruffly, and Napoleon manages to concentrate enough that Sanders doesn’t move to hit him again.

0-o-0-o-0

Napoleon doesn’t get close to taking the lead away from Kuryakin over the next two days. Neither of them win the next two stages, but that’s hardly unusual in any Tour. The record, Napoleon thinks as he studies footage of the next day’s stage from two years ago, is eight stage wins in one Tour. It’s enough that him and Kuryakin have both been in the lead group to cross the finish line, and Kuryakin’s lead has remained at that torturous fourteen seconds.

He’s heading for the start line, half listening to the chatter coming from his earpiece about how the race should be started, when Kuryakin and one of his domestiques appear at his side. Napoleon can’t help but wink at Kuryakin, a grin on his face when Kuryakin scowls and shakes his head.

Kuryakin turns to his teammate. “ _Nyet,_ ” he murmurs, and Napoleon listens in as best he can. His Russian is conversational, and definitely not fluent, but it’s enough to understand them.

“Come on, Illya,” the other teammate is saying, and Napoleon realises with a slight jolt that it’s Vitaly Kuznetsov, the sprinter. Today is a sprint finish, which means Kuznetsov will be trying to win the sprint, and win enough points to take the sprinter’s green jersey.

“Illya, we spent months planning this,” Kuznetsov says. “Come on, you know I can’t do this without you. I need you on the climbs if I’m to have a hope of being at the front for the finish. We know each other better than anyone else on the team. Think what message it will send about you as well, when they see you all. You’ll be unapproachable.”

Kuryakin sighs. “Oleg won’t be happy,” he says quietly. “He’s upset enough as it is.” He pauses. “But it would be…it would prove something.” Napoleon can tell that Kuryakin is wavering over whatever this is. There’s a muscle ticking in his jaw, and for a few long moments he just stares at the road.

“Illya?” Kuznetsov asks, and Illya sighs. He reaches up and curls a hand over his chest, and Napoleon realises he’s covering the small microphone in his shirt, just in case anything he says could be picked up on it, even though Napoleon doubts it’s actually turned on, and he guesses that Illya must just be paranoid.

“I’ll do it,” he murmurs. “I know how much this means to you. We stick to the original plan. I’ll lead you out to the end, and then you break late out of the pack. Don’t worry about me once that happens, you need to go for the jersey and not look back.”

Kuznetsov grins, looking abruptly young, and slaps Illya on the back. “Thank you,” he says, and he sounds relieved. “I know Oleg will hate this, but he’s insane. You’re good enough to keep the yellow and help me get the green. I know you are.”

Napoleon blinks in surprise. From the sound of it, Kuryakin intends to lead Kuznetsov out for the green jersey. He grins, and reaches to turn on the microphone to tell Sanders all about it.

His thumb hovers over the button that would give him a direct line to Sanders. The words are on the tip of his tongue, ideas for how to use this to his advantage, but there’s something making him pause. Up ahead, Kuryakin leans over and cuffs Kuznetsov around the head at something he said, but there’s a grin on his face, and he briefly tugs his teammate into as much of an embrace that someone can manage whilst sitting on a bicycle.

Napoleon’s hand is frozen for another few seconds over the button, and then his fingers slowly uncurl around the microphone.

There’s a movement of red and black out of the corner of his eye, and Napoleon turns his head to see one of his teammates coming up to his side. “Feeling ready?” he asks.

Napoleon shrugs. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he responds, but his mind is still on Kuryakin in front of him, and precisely why he hadn’t just pressed that little button and told Sanders everything. He’s not sure he can answer that, even in the space of his own mind.

His teammate gives him a look, but leaves him alone. Every rider has their own neuroses and habits, especially those who have ridden in the Tour for years, and everyone starts a race differently on different days. Napoleon has ridden for riders who didn’t let anyone talk to them for the entire morning of a particularly difficult race unless it was crucial for the day, and for ones who don’t shut up for the first hour. Most of them ride with something, either attached to their bikes or somewhere on their body.

It isn’t quite for luck. Napoleon doesn’t think many of them believe in objects like that, but it’s something that could almost be luck, if in poor lighting and seen out of the corner of the eye. Plenty ride with a cross, and Napoleon has seen more than a few Stars of David around peoples’ necks. He can understand that; the Tour can be dangerous sometimes. Every year they ride past memorials to riders who have died on the routes, usually in crashes in the mountains. It’s not many they see, only one or two a year, but it’s more than enough.

Almost unconsciously, Napoleon reaches up and feels for the thin chain around his neck, the small pendant sitting at the hollow above his sternum. The little metal circle is smooth and worn with age, but he rubs a thumb over it and something within him settles.

He never does tell Sanders what Kuryakin is planning, even though he has plenty of opportunity throughout. There’s only one climb throughout the stage, and though it’s challenging enough, Napoleon knows it is little compared to what is ahead of them in the mountains. Throughout, Kuryakin remains true to his word, with Kuznetsov tucked behind him the entire way.

Napoleon sees the moment when the other riders at the front of the _peloton_ realise what Kuryakin is doing, when the group of sprinters and their domestiques, along with anyone vying seriously for the yellow jersey, split off from the _peloton_ and pull ahead. Kuryakin doesn’t slip into the pack, doesn’t pick up the wheel of another yellow jersey contender. He just sits in front of Kuznetsov and increases the pace. There’s an uneasy shifting amongst some of the riders, and Napoleon thinks Kuryakin was right when he said it would prove something.

Eventually there are gaps opening up amongst the group, sprinters shifting around to get to the right places for the finish, and contenders for the yellow jersey who are mostly content to sit back behind the sprinters and wait. Kuryakin stays at the front, and everybody pretends like they aren’t watching him, waiting for him to move. Undoubtedly Kuryakin and Kuznetsov have some sort of strategy or plan they’re working off of, something they’ve been working on for a while.

Napoleon doesn’t even pretend. He notices when Kuryakin tugs out his earpiece and lets it fall to his shoulder, no doubt fed up of what Oleg is screaming at him. He sticks close to him and watches, trying to understand why Kuryakin is doing this, and he tries not to let it unsettle him that he doesn’t quite know.

There’s an end to the stage, as there is every day, and Napoleon sees his opportunity as the sprinters pull away and fall into their own, separate race as they hurtle for the line. He didn’t tell Sanders of what he’d heard, but that doesn’t stop him racing for that line, Kuryakin responding but lacking what had given him the win in that first stage, too tired to dig up his usual power. There’s a grin on Napoleon’s face as he crosses the line with Kuryakin at least six seconds behind him, but he finds that it’s tempered, for some reason he can’t quite explain.

0-o-0-o-0

The next day, Illya loses the yellow jersey.

What makes it worse is that he can’t blame the loss on Vitaly, or making a mistake in the strategy. His lead had narrowed to eight seconds after that stage yesterday, but it had been today where he’d watched Solo race away from him and known, even as he’d risen up over the handlebars of his bicycle to counter, that he wasn’t going to wear the yellow jersey tomorrow.

No, he can only blame himself for losing it, for not being good enough or fighting hard enough to keep his grip on the lead.

Oleg is apoplectic. Halfway through his screaming rant that Illya is sure everyone outside can probably hear, Illya just stops listening. He lets the world fade out and starts replaying the final moments of the race in his head, Solo’s grin as he crosses the line in first place, the fist he punches in the air as he realises that he’s not only won, but taken the yellow jersey as well.

He knows that he can’t blame Solo. Nobody gets far in any sport by constantly blaming the other competitors for their own faults, but still, he can’t help the curl of envy low in his stomach. He wants this, he wants this so badly he can taste it, the copper tang on his tongue.

Or perhaps that’s just where he’s bitten the inside of his cheek trying to keep himself together. Oleg is still shouting, having switched into Russian a while ago in his anger, and now most of the team have resigned themselves to waiting the tirade out. A couple have pulled out their phones and are flipping through twitter, seeing as they can’t understand Oleg anyway. It’s a common enough occurrence, though there have never been such stakes for Illya.

He waits for Oleg to finish and tries to stop his fingers twitching at his sides. He almost misses the days when he could hide that by standing to attention, when he didn’t have to offer platitudes or soundbites to the press, just do his job better the next time.

There’s a soft cough from Vitaly, and Illya comes back into himself to catch the end of Oleg’s tirade. “Is that it?” he asks, his voice soft.

Oleg’s glare deepens, but he doesn’t say anything. Illya nods. “I am sorry to disappoint you,” he forces himself to say, even as the words twist at his chest. He forces his voice to remain steady even as his treacherous heart tries to betray him, and he knows, as his heart thumps in his chest, that if he opens his mouth he won’t be able to stop his voice from shaking, won’t be able to tailor the words that fall from his lips to suit his trainer’s ire.

Without another word, he turns around and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who follows the Tour and knows how it works- I know what Illya and the Mercedes sprinter, Vitaly, were talking about would probably never happen in a Tour! At some points along this fic I had to sacrifice real-life accuracy for the sake of the story and the characters, so please forgive me if parts aren't quite right!
> 
> The lovely Chatterbox also picked up on the point that in real life, mountain climbers (like Illya) actually have slim builds and are quite slim and small, compared to the bigger, bulkier sprinters (it's all to do with physics and trade-offs of more mass and power) so Illya is very uncharacteristic for a mountain climber. Again, I sacrificed real life accuracy for the story, but it does play into the whole underdog aspect of Illya, and I found it fits better with his character, the sheer power and endurance needed for a climber, whilst Napoleon fitted better with the skill and quick thinking needed in descents.
> 
> Anyway, sorry to ramble on about my thinking behind the story. Hope you enjoyed the chapter (there are still things to fall out from Illya losing the yellow jersey, but that was going to make this chapter very long, so I've saved it for next chapter). For anyone in the same hell as me over exams, you'll be great. Remember to breathe.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had my first exam yesterday and think it went okay- I'm kicking myself over a mistake or two I only saw right at the end and didn't have time to fix, but it should all be fine.
> 
> Anyway, here's another chapter!! This is mostly the continued fallout from Illya losing the jersey, and contains the first significant interaction between Napoleon and Illya...
> 
> Also, this fic now has cover art!! Thank you so so much to TFE for making this brilliant cover art, everyone go on over and have a look!

Napoleon steps out of the Alfa Romeo bus just in time to see Kuryakin disappear across the square, behind one of the barricades beyond which the press can’t go. He pauses, water bottle in hand, and watches the space where the other cyclist had just been.

He tries not to lie to himself too often, and he’s not going to deny that there’s part of him that started feeling smug as soon as he took the jersey from Kuryakin. He couldn’t have kept the smile off his face as he accepted the jersey even if he’d wanted to, and he keeps catching glimpses of it in the mirror in the bus and promptly losing his train of thought, not expecting to see yellow instead of his usual red and black.

There’s a sensible part of Napoleon, sounding suspiciously like the voice of Sanders, which tells him to head back inside and leave Kuryakin to his own team. He’ll do no good poking around where he’s not wanted. But the larger part of him, the one that made him run around Europe because he couldn’t turn away from everything there was on offer, makes him walk across the square and follow Kuryakin.

Napoleon has wondered multiple times whether his curiosity is one day going to get him killed, but he thinks, in that moment when he rounds a corner and is suddenly against the wall, bricks digging into his back and an arm at his throat, that this might be the closest he’s ever come so far.

“Nice to see you too,” he wheezes.

The pressure gives at his throat, and Kuryakin steps back. “What are you doing?” he grinds out, and Napoleon, rubbing at his throat, notices how his hands are trembling. There’s a look on Kuryakin’s face that Napoleon, for all his skills at reading people, can’t quite work out. He glances at his hands again, noting the fine tremors running through them.

Kuryakin sees him looking and crosses his arms quickly, his scowl deepening. “Come to rub it in where the press can’t hear?” he asks quietly. “Go ahead.”

“Well, only if you promise not to choke me again,” Napoleon says. He smirks. “Or we can take that to the bedroom, if you really want to.” His smirk widens when he sees Kuryakin flinch slightly. “Didn’t take you for that type, but I’m open to exploration,” he drawls.

Kuryakin’s expression shutters, and if possible, he closes off even more. Inwardly Napoleon winces, knowing he probably crossed a line way now behind him at some point. “Sorry, that was crass,” he offers. “If you want honesty, then I saw you as you disappeared around the corner. You looked…”

“Like nothing you should be interfering with,” Kuryakin snaps. “You Americans and your damn curiosity, sticking your noses where they don’t belong.”

“Like the Russians can speak so damn highly of themselves?” Napoleon drawls. “I suppose one of the Red Peril wouldn’t dare criticise their country, though.”

Kuryakin frowns, and abruptly goes from angry to confused. “Red Peril?” he repeats slowly. “What the hell is that?”

Napoleon suddenly feels derailed, the growing tension thrown off by Kuryakin as he stands there, a frown creasing his brow. The curiosity in him only sparks and grows bigger. “It’s what we called you during the Cold War,” he explains. “Well, the nicer version that we could say in front of kids.”

To his surprise, Kuryakin snorts. “We just called you capitalist pigs,” he says. A small smile curls his lips as he glances up at him. Napoleon can’t help but grin in answer, and he suddenly thinks: _Oh no. This isn’t going to end well._

He can always tell when something is too tantalising for him to be able to walk away from it. It just happens that when something is that tempting, he has very poor impulse control.

“Well, I plead the fifth,” he says through his grin. Illya shakes his head, and drops his arms to his sides. His hands, Napoleon notices, are still shaking slightly. “Are you okay?” he offers gently.

Illya turns, as if to stalk away but not quite able to take the first step. “It is none of your concern,” he mutters, and the tension is back in his voice, a muscle ticking in his clenched jaw.

Napoleon tries again. “I’ve seen what Oleg can be like,” he offers. “I don’t think-”

“No,” Illya says. “You don’t. You just stick your nose in wherever you want. I’m not interested.” He breathes out, and stretches his fingers out down by his sides. “If I’ve satisfied your curiosity enough, perhaps you could leave.”

His hands are still shaking. Napoleon frowns. “I don’t think you’re okay,” he says slowly, and Illya snaps back to him, hands curling into fists. Napoleon has noticed before how tall he is, the muscle that is impossible not to stare at once noticed, but he thinks this is the first time he’s ever been intimidated by it.

“You don’t get an opinion,” Illya snaps, his voice low and rough in his throat. “You don’t get to decide whether I am _okay_ or not. You’re…it’s not-” He cuts himself off, and makes an aborted movement, like he’s about to punch the wall next to him. At the last moment, the power just sinks from his body, and he ends up leaning against the wall, heaving in a breath.

Napoleon wants to reach out and touch, to see what Illya will feel like beneath his hand, the curve of his muscle under his palm. He flinches forwards, but surprisingly manages to restrain himself at the last moment. “I’m-”

“If you speak, I am going to hit you,” Illya gets out.

“That will get you kicked out of the Tour,” Napoleon points out. “And I think you’d crash and burn before you let that happen. I know exactly how much this means to you.”

“Do you?” Illya asks, hand slipping from the wall as he turns to him. “Do you really?” There’s a snarl to his voice, and for a brief moment Napoleon thinks he’s going to slam him into the wall again. “I have pulled myself up from gutter for this,” Illya snarls, pressing Napoleon back into the rough brick behind him. “I have given up _everything_ to be here, and you, you come in here like you own the place, like yellow jersey belongs to you when you have done nothing to earn it, when I have scraped and clawed for every bit of this!”

“Yeah, everyone has a fucking origin story,” Napoleon snaps back. “And I’m sure yours is suitably tragic, but you don’t get to say anything about me. You have no idea where I’ve come from, and I don’t owe you an explanation.”

Illya blinks, and Napoleon suddenly realises just how close he’s standing, pressing him back against the wall with his sheer presence alone. Nevertheless, Napoleon raises his head and stares Illya down. “You don’t get to put me in the role of villain just to make yourself feel better,” he says quietly. “No matter how much you hate me.”

Illya curses in Russian, turning his head away to stare down the street. There’s a muscle jumping in his jaw, and Napoleon once again feels that urge to reach out and touch. He restrains himself, but only from stroking a light touch along the sharp line of his jaw, or something equally ridiculous. Instead, he pushes at Illya’s shoulder.

The next moment he’s almost doubled over, Illya’s hands wrapped around his, his thumbs digging into the back of his hand and pushing his wrist into a position Napoleon is sure that wrists shouldn’t be in. “What the fuck?” he barks out, trying to tug his arm from Illya’s grasp.

“Touch me again without permission,” Illya says, moving his hands a fraction until there’s just the phantom sensation of pain left, “and I will break your wrist.”

Napoleon holds up one hand. “Okay, I won’t,” he says, and for once he’s actually serious. He’s seen the process and aftermath of a wide variety of abuse, thanks to the wonderful US foster care system, and he knows when someone is being dramatic and when someone is being serious. Illya is nothing but serious, and there’s a hint of something Napoleon might call panic, if it were anyone but Illya, on his face.

“Let go of me,” he says calmly. “Please.”

Illya drops him like his hand is a red-hot poker. Napoleon immediately cradles his wrist, and if he’s making more of a fuss about it than he needs to, if he knows that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, it’s because Illya’s hands are starting to shake again, and there’s a look in his eye that Napoleon doesn’t like to see on anyone’s face. He can offer up a distraction, even if that’s all he can do.

“Don’t be baby,” Illya scoffs as Napoleon flexes his fingers. “I knew what I was doing. There won’t be any damage.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Napoleon mutters. “Just how did you know how to do that, by the way?”

Illya shrugs, turning away, and Napoleon can see the tremors in his hands. “You know what, don’t worry about answering that,” he says, ignoring the part of him that tells him to push and prod until he gets what he wants, to pull Illya apart and find out who he is and what makes him execute a perfect wrist lock but then not look him in the eye. He does appreciate when tact is useful, after all. More than that, he knows when to stop before he gets a black eye. “I’ll just assume it’s something Russian and intimidating.”

Illya snorts, and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “I just assume you say something arrogant and self-involved half the time.” His lip curls in disgust. “American.”

Napoleon suddenly finds himself grinning. “Guilty as charged,” he says. His grin does nothing to make Illya look more at ease. If anything, he looks more hunted, gaze darting to Napoleon and then away again. Napoleon recognises the type of look, but there’s a hell of a lot more hidden in Illya than in the kids he’d used to see it on.

“I don’t understand you,” Illya says eventually, his voice rough in his throat. “What do you want?”

Napoleon shrugs. If he’s honest with himself, he’s not quite sure why he can’t stay away from Illya. At least part of it is just pure curiosity, wanting to know who Illya is, where he has come from, what made him give up six seconds to help his teammate take the green jersey. He wonders if Illya was being literal, when he said he dragged himself up from the gutter. Somehow, he doesn’t think it would surprise him. He’s always been good at reading people, and there’s something buried there, in the way Illya holds himself, beneath the aggression and the scowl that so often appears on such a lovely face, that speaks of something worn deep beneath his skin. He wants to know what that is.

“I’m curious,” he says easily, instead of the thousand thoughts crowding his mind. “It’s a terrible American habit that I don’t think I’ll ever manage to quit.”

Illya sighs deeply, and squeezes his eyes shut for a brief moment as he turns away from Napoleon. When he turns back, Napoleon can see he’s clawed back some control over whatever is loose, pulled himself back from whatever edge he was nearing. He curses under his breath.

“Oh, there’s no need to be that crass,” Napoleon says, smirking. Illya freezes, staring at Napoleon, and abruptly Napoleon realises Illya had been speaking in Russian.

“You…you speak Russian?” Illya asks, incredulous.

Napoleon shrugs. It was a pity that he hadn’t been able to keep quiet, but he supposes it’s not such a great loss. He has plenty more cards left to play. “It’s not as good as my French, but it’s enough,” he says. “Why, is such a capitalist pig not allowed to touch your language?”

Illya stares at him. “Speak Russian all you want,” he says eventually. “Your pronunciation will be terrible, though.”

“You haven’t even heard it,” Napoleon feels compelled to point out.

“Doesn’t matter,” Illya says decisively. “It will be awful.”

Napoleon smirks. “Well, I suppose everyone has to have some flaws,” he replies, his smirk covering up the uncertainty, but more the thrill he finds now running through him. He can’t quite keep track of this conversation, growing tension suddenly thrown off, sharp words and anger turning into uncertain looks turning into reluctant laughter. It’s disconcerting, but more than that it’s fascinating, it makes Napoleon want for more, want to know more. It’s been too long since someone has presented such a challenge, had him thinking on his feet, trying to find the right words to draw out a response, and he is enjoying the thrill of it far more than he thought he would be.

Illya is silent for a long moment. “Why are you doing this?” he asks eventually, and there’s a weariness to his voice that Napoleon suddenly realises he might have been missing, through all of this, until Illya’s guard now drops enough for it to seep through.

Napoleon shrugs. “Like I said,” he replies. “Curiosity. Oh, I am trying to be a decent person as well, though, as hard as you’re making it for me.” Illya looks at him sharply, and Napoleon pointedly looks at his hands, that stopped shaking a few minutes ago.

Illya curses, and quickly crosses his arms. Napoleon holds up his hands. “I’m not going to ask,” he says steadily. “I’m curious, but I’m not completely tactless, and some things are private. Besides, I don’t think you want to talk to me about it.” He pauses. “Is there anyone you do want to talk to? I have my phone on me, I can call someone if you know their number.”

Illya seems to actually consider it for a moment, and then shakes his head. “No, she’ll find me soon enough,” he says. He hesitates. “Thank you, though,” he adds, and Napoleon doesn’t miss what it takes for him to say that.

It’s also a dismissal, a clear signal that Illya has had enough, and the itch under Napoleon’s skin feels satisfied for now. “By the way,” he says as he turns to leave. “I didn’t tell anyone of your plans yesterday.”

Illya stares at him, and Napoleon shrugs. “I overheard you and Kuznetsov on the start line,” he explains. “Seeing as I can speak Russian, and everything. But I didn’t tell anyone, not even Sanders.”

“Why?” Illya asks, and Napoleon knows his question is more complicated than that, knows he understands the rivalry between their two teams, the stakes that are on offer here.

He doesn’t quite know why, so he just shrugs again. “You’re one hell of a challenge,” he says. “I want to know if I can equal it on my own terms, not because I overheard a conversation I wasn’t expected to understand.”

Illya almost smiles at that. “We’re heading into mountains soon,” he says, a shade of what might be anticipation curving his lips and colouring his voice. “Sure you’re ready to equal me there?”

Napoleon laughs. “I’ll give it my damn best,” he replies. “I’m not giving this up without a fight.” He turns away again, waving a hand half-heartedly in goodbye. “See you on the road, Peril.”

Illya, when he glances back, looks surprised for a moment, before his lips twitch in a smile he’s trying to hide. “See you then, Cowboy,” he calls after Napoleon as he leaves.

It’s only when Napoleon gets back to his team bus, brushing off the various jokes about where he’d gone and what he’d been doing, that he realises that Kuryakin became Illya halfway through that encounter. He groans slightly. He’s in far too deep already, but damn it, he’s not backing out now.

0-o-0-o-0

“Of course, it’s a setback,” Oleg says on the screen of the TV in Illya’s hotel room. He looks perfectly comfortable in front of the tangle of reporters, each wielding a microphone more like a weapon than recording equipment. Illya envies how comfortable he looks in front of the cameras pointed in his face, Mercedes on his hat and jacket and behind him, anywhere they can apparently squeeze the logo in. Illya is used to it by now, and Mercedes pay him, so he can’t exactly complain.

“Of course, it’s a setback, and a disappointment,” Oleg is saying to the crowd of sharks circling him. “But we all have faith in Kuryakin, here at Mercedes. We know that this is only the start of the Tour. Solo may be wearing the yellow jersey at the moment, but Kuryakin will be wearing it again soon enough.”

Next to him, Gaby scoffs, and salutes the TV with her mug. Illya is fairly sure there’s vodka in that, but he can’t taste it to find out, and after all this time he knows just how well Gaby can hold her liquor. “True enough,” she says. “Though I’m not sure the bit about faith was necessary.”

Illya just nods. He finds it’s best to do that when Gaby gets going. “I mean seriously, Oleg could be slightly less patronising about it,” she says as they watch the replay of the day’s stage and all the interviews afterwards. “It’s a five second lead, what Solo has over you. It really isn’t the end of the world.”

“Just wait,” Illya says, taking a sip of the disgusting protein shake they force on all of them after a stage. He screws up his face, but drinks it anyway. “They will start talking about mountains soon, and then you know exactly what they will show.”

“Oh yes, I always love watching you finish that stage with blood everywhere and a concussion, and then throw up afterwards,” Gaby says cheerfully. “Great fun for everyone involved.”

“Nobody caught me throwing up on camera and you know it, chop shop girl,” Illya points out. That whole day is still blurry in his memory, but he’s seen the replay enough times to piece together most of it. What he does remember is barely being able to see as he crosses the line, congealed blood gluing one eye shut. He remembers seeing the finish line and how something in him, the same thing that had made him get back up even as the world spun around him on that mountain road, had let him keep cycling until he crossed it and then had promptly given up.

He vaguely remembers getting off his bike and walking away, letting someone else take care of it and heading straight for the team bus. He has a very vague recollection of someone grabbing him, slinging his arm over their shoulders and pushing the press away as they crowded round. That had been Weber, apparently, though Illya remembers nothing the man said to him. The camera lights had been flashing in his face, and it had been all he could do to stop himself throwing up in front of them.

Gaby, next to him on the bed, hums. “Yes, but I saw you throwing up, and that’s permanently seared onto my memory, thank you very much,” she says. “You were disgusting.”

“I was concussed,” Illya points out. “You throw up when you’re concussed.”

Gaby scoffs, and shakes her head. “I still can’t believe that they let you finish the Tour that year,” she says, and Illya huffs a laugh. He feels still with Gaby, even with her just sitting next to him and heckling the other cyclists now on screen. She knows him better than anyone, by now, and it’s comforting that he doesn’t have to watch what he’s saying, or talk if he doesn’t want to.

“I was put between Mark and Antonio the next day, in front of Weber,” Illya remembers, a small smile curling his lips. “Anytime I started swaying, they made sure I stayed in line, and they basically fed me water and energy bars the entire time.” He huffs a laugh, remembering just how wobbly he’d been on that bike the next day. Mark and Antonio had stopped him slipping off his bike more than once on that stage, subtly enough that none of the officials noticed and pulled him out of the Tour.

“Let’s not repeat that this year,” Gaby says. “No concussions, promise me that.”

Illya grins. “No concussions,” he agrees, and clinks his protein shake against Gaby’s mug. “I’ll drink to that.”

He vaguely listens to Gaby ramble on about bikes and tyres and mountain roads, nodding along at the appropriate moments, and as he’s not paying attention he actually jumps when she suddenly starts heckling the screen. He steadies his shake, wiping a few spots off his jacket, and looks up at the TV. He’s not surprised to see Solo there, giving yet another interview about the day’s stage.

“ _Arschloch,”_ Gaby spits at the TV, and then she devolves into a heated rant in German at the screen. Illya listens, though his German isn’t quite good enough to keep up with some of the more inventive slang Gaby throws in there.

Privately, Illya thinks that Solo looks less human on the screen in front of them. He looked better yesterday, hair just starting to fall out of the gel and curl softly, something on his face that was so far from pity Illya felt that for once, he could stomach it. There’s still a curl of something he doesn’t quite want to think about deep in his stomach, but now it’s tempered slightly by the memory of Solo’s smirk when it’s away from all the cameras, how Solo could have told Sanders his plans but never did.

He shakes his head slightly, jolting out of his own thoughts, and tunes back in to catch the end of Gaby’s rant. “He’s useless,” Gaby says to him, once she’s gotten it out of her system. She leans into Illya’s side, rearranging his arm around her until she’s satisfied. “He’s _American._ That’s bad enough, without all...” she waves her hand at the screen, “that.”

“Not socialist enough for an East Berlin girl?” Illya asks wryly. Gaby laughs, because the wall came down well before she was born, and Berlin is just Berlin now. East Berlin has mostly left its mark by a deep sense of pride running through her, and a strength to more than match it. It’s a running joke between the two of them, as Illya is just old enough to remember the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and grew up on the tales, that neither is holding up the proper Communist ideals of their countries.

Truthfully, Illya likes Berlin. He likes how he could, if he wanted to, be almost anyone he wanted to and not be persecuted for it. It’s one of the reasons why, even though Russia will always be home, he hasn’t lived there for nearly seven years.

“If he’s not socialist enough for me, then it’s no wonder the two of you hate each other,” Gaby says, with a wicked grin on her face. Illya makes a face at her, and drinks more of his protein shake so he doesn’t have to answer.

“Nothing but a proper Communist for you,” Illya says dryly, and he tips the protein shake from side to side, watching it run slowly down the sides of the glass.

Gaby raises her mug in a salute. “Long live the Socialist Revolution,” she declares. “Viva Marx!”

“Is there alcohol in that?” Illya asks, trying to sniff at her tea to see if there really is vodka.

Gaby arches a brow. “No?” she says, an unmistakeable lilt to her voice. Illya just gives her a look, and then snatches the mug out of her hand.

“Then it won’t be a problem if I drink this,” he says, raising the mug to his lips. Gaby giggles, and then snatches it back.

“Oleg will murder me if you drink that,” she says through the grin on her lips. “No alcohol for cyclists, especially not cyclists who have a yellow jersey to win back.” She leans into his side. “Finish your protein shake and I’ll sneak you a piece of éclair from dinner.”

Illya curls a lock of her hair around his finger as Gaby rests her head against his shoulder. “No promises,” he says. He turns his attention back to the coverage on the screen, and lets the quiet wash over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Peril has now come into play as well as Cowboy- things are beginning to move along. Napoleon is far too curious for his own good, but it will probably work out for him in the long run (well, I know if it will or not, but you will all have to wait and see). Both of their backstories will be explained in a fair amount of detail as the story unfolds- they've been changed somewhat for the AU setting, Napoleon's more than Illya's, but hopefully it will all make sense eventually.
> 
> Their conversation was actually really interesting for me to write, playing them off against one another. I particularly liked writing Napoleon's response when Illya accuses him of having done nothing to earn the jersey- 'everyone has a fucking origin story' I was quite pleased with when I came up with it. Gaby was also good fun to write- the 'Viva Marx' thing she says is part of a typical socialist chant, though I don't know whether they used it in Germany specifically. I learnt it from my dad- it was probably one of the first political phrases or ideas my sister and I learnt about, because my dad thought it funny to have his young children shouting socialist chants in the playground in a fairly conservative area of the UK. We taught it to the other kids, of course.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an exam tomorrow morning, and then another one the day after, and then another the day after that, but then I will be finished! I'm trying not to think about that, because then it means I'm halfway to finishing with my Master's degree and that's just not okay.
> 
> Anyway, have another chapter whilst I still remember and my brain isn't completely fried. The next two are going to be longer than usual, because that's just how it fell out when I was writing it, but I don't think any of you are actually going to complain about that. There's a little bit of angst in this chapter, but not much (especially compared to what's coming...)

As with most things, it’s all going well until it isn’t.

They head into the mountains the next day, winding their way up steep mountain roads. The fog lingers, wrapping itself around the pine trees and reaching out for them as they wind up the side of mountains. Beads of water roll down the handlebars, and Napoleon spends far too long watching one persevere until it finally drops to be lost on the wet road beneath his wheels.

There’s a tension in the air, a shared knowledge amongst the riders that suddenly, the stakes of the game have risen. Everyone knows what can happen in the mountains, and it feels like they’re all just waiting for the first wobble of a bike, the first clip of a wheel, the first rider to hit the ground on the descent. Napoleon watches the space around him, and he can see Illya, just up ahead, doing the same.

He knows both of them will be protected by their domestiques for the first climb, but he has plans to break away in the descent, and he rather doubts that Illya won’t be thinking similar things. There are only so many ways to try and outpace another rider, and the steep descents through the cols of the Alps are a good way to do it.

They reach the summit of the day, and Napoleon can’t help but think that they do need to find a different colour for the King of the Mountains’ jersey. White with red polka dots is really unflattering to any rider who tries to wear it.

He can see Illya tensing, can see his domestiques beginning to move as they reach the summit, giving him a clear line to the open road in front of him. Napoleon nods quietly to himself, and creeps forwards until he’s almost sitting on Illya’s wheel. Illya may be a mystery to him, may flame the spark of curiosity in his chest until he can’t help but follow, but in some things, he is as predictable as the next cyclist.

Sure enough, as soon as they start to descend Illya breaks away, and Napoleon, a small grin on his face, follows. There are others following them, others still clinging to the race for the yellow jersey and a few from Mercedes and Alfa Romeo, following their leaders. Illya leads the group for a few minutes, and then lets himself fall back enough that he can ride in someone else’s slipstream.

They barely need to pedal down the mountain roads, it’s that steep. Napoleon can’t help the small grin that curls his lips as he crouches low on his bike and angles it just enough to slip around the next corner, touching the brakes just enough to keep himself on the road. This is what he loves, this is why he spends months and months forcing his body as far as he can push it. The roar of the wind and the quiet hum of the bike beneath him, wheels spinning so fast that they’re a blur, is all that he can hear right now. The pine trees are a dark green blur in the corner of his eye, the road spilling out beneath his wheels, and he thinks he understands, in these moments, why they all do this, why they all wreck their bodies and any other part of their lives for this.

The group thins out, domestiques dropping back and out of the race for the finish until there are only six of them left, strung out along the road as they pick up speed with every turn of their wheels. Illya slips just behind him as Napoleon cuts around the inside of a corner, and Napoleon shoots a grin over his shoulder as Illya settles on his wheel. He thinks he sees Illya glare at him, but at the speeds they’re going it’s hard to tell, so he just grins at him again before Sanders is shouting in his ear about focusing on the damn road.

“Rain coming in,” someone says over the radio, interrupting Sanders’ rant. “Solo, it’ll hit you in three minutes. Watch your wheels, the roads are going to be awful.”

“Confirmed,” Napoleon says. He sees Illya reaching for the microphone clipped to the throat of his shirt out of the corner of his eye, undoubtedly receiving the same weather report. Napoleon shoots him a look and rolls his eyes as Sanders picks his rant back up, thumbing the microphone at his throat to annoy Sanders with the static. To his surprise, Illya just nods, and grimaces in sympathy at whatever his own trainers are telling him.

The rain hits them only a few minutes later, and Napoleon’s attention cannot be anywhere but the road, especially not on the silver Mercedes shirt riding close enough that he can hear the spin of the wheels. The roads are only getting steeper, and Napoleon feels adrenaline rush through him as his wheels skid slightly on the water that’s already beginning to run downhill. He compensates, leaning the bike into the curve of the road, and waits for a few perilous seconds until the wheels grip the tarmac again.

Napoleon swallows, and adjusts his grip on the handlebars. He’s wearing the damn yellow jersey, he’s not going to fall on the first proper day in the mountains.

Later, watching the replay from the safety of the team bus that is definitely not moving, Napoleon realises it all goes wrong when one of the riders up ahead, a young arrogant rider for another team that’s chasing King of the Mountains, merely takes a corner a shade too fast. In the moment, though, it all happens too fast.

There’s the shriek of metal against tarmac. Napoleon hits the brakes on his bike but he’s not quick enough, it’s not enough, and his bike fishtails underneath him before hitting something solid and flipping up into the air. He can’t do anything but hit the road, and all the breath is knocked out of him as he tries to roll with the momentum and grit his teeth as the road scrapes the skin off him, pain flashing across his shoulders and back. There’s a muffled shout, and then another shriek of metal. Napoleon rolls just in time to see another bike go down and someone else flung across the road, and then the world spins around him and goes black.

When he opens his eyes the wheels of his bike are still spinning, so he figures he’s only been out for a second or two, if that. It takes him a few more seconds for his head to stop spinning, and then he’s scrambling up onto his knees, not quite able to hold back the bark of pain at the scrapes across his back and shoulders. He kneels, panting through his teeth, as he tries to get a grip on the adrenaline flooding through his body.

A hand appears in his field of vision. Napoleon follows it up to see Illya standing over him. He looks battered and beaten, a trickle of blood running down his face and his shirt torn across one shoulder, but he stands there and offers Napoleon his hand.

Napoleon doesn’t think before he reaches up and takes it.

0-o-0-o-0

Illya is too late to do anything but brace himself as a rider loses control and crashes, too close to Solo’s wheel to get out of the way when Solo’s bike skids and hits the downed rider. There’s that brief, strange feeling of suspension that he’s never become accustomed to, and then he hits the road hard. He can feel the skin being scraped off his shoulder, but it’s not much pain compared to what he’s dealt with before, and he tucks his head in and rolls, letting muscle memory take over.

Still, his head is ringing and his body sore when he finally comes to a stop and heaves himself up to his feet. His bike, thankfully, looks whole and working, and he stumbles towards it before he realises that Solo is slowly uncurling on the road, his bike lying next to him.

Illya hesitates. Later, he rationalises that it’s because there’s something still engraved into his bones that makes him conditioned to head towards an accident, danger of any sort; that he wouldn’t be a decent person if he didn’t stop to see if he was hurt. But the other rider who had crashed was lying on the road beyond him, and Illya knows that he didn’t even notice him at the time.

He stumbles towards Solo, dragging his bike with him. The medics and cameras are starting to reach them now, but Illya ignores them. He stops in front of Solo, who’s just gotten to his knees and is gritting his teeth, obviously trying to wrestle back the pain of a crash at such high speeds. Without quite knowing what he’s doing, he offers his hand.

Solo looks up at him and then slowly, carefully, reaches out and takes it.

Illya doesn’t let himself think about the warmth of Solo’s grip, the way he reaches for Illya’s wrist instead of his hand, his long fingers settling over his pulse point. He just pulls him back up to his feet, grabbing his elbow when Solo staggers. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Solo? Cowboy, look at me. Are you hurt?”

Solo blinks, and Illya can see him pushing through it and shoving it down, sorting through the aches and pains his body is flashing up at him. He shakes his head. “I’m okay, I’m fine,” he breathes, and Illya finds himself missing the warmth of his grip around his wrist when Solo turns for his bike. “What…are you okay?” he asks as he tugs his bike up off the ground. Somehow it doesn’t look broken, and Napoleon fiddles briefly with the gears. Turned away from him, Illya can see the shreds of his shirt across his shoulders and back, the road rash beneath.

“Fine,” Illya says quickly. “I’m fine.” He glances down the road and suddenly realises that the rest of the group are gone, are down the mountainside and round enough corners that he can’t see them anymore. A sudden panic grips his throat. “We need to go,” he says quickly. “We’re losing them.”

Napoleon follows Illya’s gaze, and then curses. “Look, I know you hate me,” he says as he slings a leg over his bike. “And maybe that’s fair, I’m an obnoxious person and I know it. But if either of us want a hope in hell of keeping this fucking jersey, then we need to work together to get back to the front. Agreed?”

Illya gives him a look, and gets on his own bike. “I agree,” he says as he fits his shoes back to the pedals. “You are obnoxious.”

Napoleon stares at him, even as he starts to pedal and they leave the crash behind them. “You’re impossible, Peril,” he says as Illya rides next to him, but there’s a grin curling his lips.

Illya just nods. “Take my wheel,” he says to him. “Get your balance back. You’re all over the road, Cowboy, and we need to go fast. Still one more climb left to finish.” Napoleon just falls into place behind him, sticking to his wheel as Illya digs deep and starts to really ride, and Illya tries to ignore how easy it feels.

Oleg is screaming in his ear about timings and tactics and domestiques, and Illya endures it for five minutes before ripping the earpiece out and letting it fall down to hang by his neck. When he glances back over his shoulder, Napoleon just does the same, and nods. Somehow, it’s reassuring.

It takes another few minutes before Napoleon comes up alongside Illya. “I’ll take over,” he shouts over the rush of the wind past them. Illya can only just glance at him for a second before turning back to the road, but it’s enough to see the bruises beginning to form on Napoleon’s face, the way he’s hunched down against the bike, the back of his shirt in shreds.

Napoleon edges in front of him and Illya sets on his wheel, following the curve of his body as he leans into a corner and accelerates around it. Alone together, Illya realises just how beautiful Napoleon is on a bike. There’s a grace to him as he leans into another corner, power and speed perfectly balanced to stay on the road, which Illya thinks he won’t ever be able to replicate, even with years more of practice.

They round the corner and suddenly Illya can see the whole valley falling away from them, their road snaking through the pine trees that turn the whole valley dark, chalets peppered throughout like clusters of snowdrops. If he looks up, a scant second where his eyes aren’t on the road and Napoleon in front of him, he can see where the road starts to climb again, back up the side of the valley. There’s a flash on that road, barely visible through the pines, and Illya realises, a second after flinching and fighting down the instinct to duck for cover, that it’s the reflection off one of the cars or motorbikes following the group that they crashed out of.

“Cowboy!” he shouts out over the wind. Napoleon glances back at him quickly, just enough to acknowledge that he’s heard him. Illya waits for a straight part of the road and then pushes forwards to come up alongside Napoleon.

“They are on climb,” he shouts over to him. “We need to go faster.”

Napoleon nods. “I lead you down, you lead me up,” he offers. “We both know you’re better on the climb.”

“Deal, Cowboy,” Illya shouts. “You up to it?”

Somehow, he manages to see Napoleon’s smirk even as they careen down the road, the rain lashing in their faces and the wind making it almost impossible to hear anything Napoleon shouts at him without cycling as close to him as he can get without sending both of them down again.

“Watch me work, Peril,” Napoleon shouts over the roar of the wind. “Just watch me work.”

0-o-0-o-0

_This is- I can’t quite believe what I am watching here. It’s only the first day of the mountains, and already everyone has had a reminder of why these roads are just so dangerous._

_Yes, Chris, that crash really wasn’t easy to watch. Johnson just took that corner too fast chasing the King of the Mountains title, and with it he took down Kuryakin and Solo, the two men fighting it out for that yellow jersey. But what we’re seeing now, what everyone is watching back at home, is nothing short of incredible._

_If they pull this off, this is going to be on every sports channel for the next week. Kuryakin and Solo both crashed, but instead of each of them scrambling for their bikes and trying to use this to decisively beat the other, Kuryakin actually stopped and helped Solo get to his feet._

_These two cyclists, for the very few people who are living under a rock and haven’t heard, have a fierce rivalry going on this Tour._

_That’s a nice way of putting it._

_How I would describe it probably would get me fired, if I used that language. But regardless of what animosity is between the two of them, what is amazing right now is that they’re not only working together, they’re gaining ground on the leaders!_

_Yes, it’s quite something. Solo led Kuryakin down most of the descent, gaining decent ground on the leaders, and now as they hit that final climb up to the finish it’s Kuryakin who is taking the lead. We all know what Kuryakin can do in the mountains, but now the question is whether Solo can keep up with him._

_Never before, in my memory of all the mountain climbs I have done over the years doing the Tour, have I seen such a comeback that these two might be on the verge of today. They’re exhausted, battered and bruised and still they’re gaining ground on the leaders!_

_This is- I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Not even the fabled crash of Kuryakin and Weber three years ago can compare. Solo and Kuryakin are storming up the climb, gaining on the leaders with every second, and I daren’t say it, but-_

_-it looks like they might just catch them up._

_Everything is at stake here for the two of them. If they don’t make the ground back up, chances are they’ll both have a much harder fight to get that yellow jersey. They have to catch them up._

_What I think is fascinating is that Kuryakin is obviously stronger than Solo. We all know that he’s a powerhouse in the mountains. Solo is impressive, and enough to be catching up with the leaders, but he’s not Kuryakin._

_Nobody is as strong as Kuryakin in the mountains._

_Quite right. But Kuryakin is leading him, just as Solo led him down the mountains. Kuryakin has every right to pull ahead and try to claw back the time he’s lost in the past few days, but he’s sticking with Solo, and not just staying with him, but leading him up this final climb. For two men who reportedly hate each other, it’s amazing how they’ve managed to put aside their differences and work together-_

_-and so well, for that matter. Solo led Kuryakin down the mountain, which was undoubtedly invaluable to the Russian, as we all know Solo is the best in the Tour on the descents. There, they worked together like they’d been riding together for years. Now look at them! Only three hundred metres left between them and the leaders now._

_Those two must be exhausted, but they’re still fighting for it. It’s tantalisingly in reach now, but the finish is also near. Is their huge effort going to be enough?_

_I can’t even watch this, Nicole, the suspense is killing me._

_I suspect the effort is killing the two of them right now, Chris, so you’ll have to suck it up and keep watching. Makes you nostalgic for the old cycling days, right?_

_Right now? Absolutely not._

_I don’t know, remember the adrenaline of these rides? It was-_

_-oh my God, sorry to cut you off Nicole but look at this! Look at Kuryakin and Solo! There’s only a kilometre left of the race, but it looks like Kuryakin and Solo aren’t worried about it! They’re storming up the climb and amazingly, they’re closing the gap. Less than eighty metres between them and the leading group now-_

_-look, you can see those in that group looking nervously over their shoulders, they aren’t sure of what’s coming and neither are we. This is unprecedented, this is completely unprecedented, and bloody marvellous._

_Solo is reaching out for Kuryakin as they reach the back of the group, both of them still powering forwards and looking like they’re aiming for the front, and that is-_

_-yes, that’s a fist bump there, a quiet congratulation between the two of them at what they’ve just managed to pull off. I think it’s each to their own now as they enter the final few hundred metres._

_It looks that way, the two of them staying on either side of the group, and everyone is fighting for that finish line, but it almost looks like-_

_-oh my god, Kuryakin and Solo both have somehow dredged up some fight from somewhere and are hurtling down towards that line!_

_They must be running on sheer adrenaline now, and the group is eating up the road but Kuryakin and Solo are edging forwards, slowly but surely getting closer and closer to the lead cyclists._

_I don’t think they can overtake and win, even that is too much to ask of them now, but that doesn’t matter, it isn’t going to matter because this has been incredible, this is-_

_-one for the history books! They’re hurtling over the line now, and it looks like Solo and Kuryakin have taken fourth and fifth respectively. I feel sorry for Moretti, who has just won his first stage in the Tour._

_Yes, his win is unfortunately going to be completely eclipsed by Solo and Kuryakin’s incredible feat today. They’re coming to a stop now, and you can see even from the little footage we’re getting through the crowds of teammates and officials just how exhausted the two of them look. They put in a herculean effort to keep their places in the Tour, and now they’re paying for it._

_It looks like both of them have collapsed on the road, and I’m not surprised. We’ll just have to wait and see whether they have given up too much on this stage._

0-o-0-o-0

Napoleon barely registers it when his bike shudders to a stop, the crowd of people surging around him in a mass of colours and frantic movements in the corner of his eye. Someone is shouting, and there is the pervasive click and flash of cameras all around him.

He tries to take a deep breath but his heart is hammering too fast in his chest and he can feel nausea rising in his throat, his body screaming at him in a thousand ways that this was too much, that this time he’s gone too far. He barely registers tipping to the side, and then suddenly the road is rushing up to meet him. There’s a sting as his shoulder connects with the tarmac, but it’s nothing compared to the rest of the screams of his body.

Someone grabs his shoulder and reluctantly Napoleon rolls over. “I’m okay,” he rasps as someone crouches over him. “I’m fine.”

A water bottle is pressed into his hand, and someone else suddenly pours another bottle across his neck and back. Napoleon jumps, and tries to stop the yelp of pain as the movement pulls at the scrapes across his back. “What the fuck?” he bites out in between heaving breaths. Someone says something that sounds vaguely apologetic, but someone else is pressing the water bottle to Napoleon’s lips, and he suddenly realises how thirsty he is.

It takes him a long few minutes before he feels like he isn’t going to throw up or pass out as soon as he moves. There are officials crowded around him, trying to block off most of the cameras, but Napoleon can still see the flashes out of the corner of his eye as the reporters and cameramen crowd as close as they can to him, to turn any moment of this they can into sensationalism.

If Napoleon wasn’t currently so exhausted, he thinks he’d almost be impressed with their determination to eke out every last drop of drama from this moment. It’s surprisingly American of the mostly European journalists.

There’s a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turns to see medics rushing through the crowds. Not all of them are heading for him, though, and there’s something that feels suspiciously similar to worry, real worry, sink through him and sit heavy and unmoving at the base of his spine. He scrambles to his feet, waving off the people who are actually concerned and the many more who probably aren’t, but who can’t look away from the dramatics.

“Illya,” he tries to rasp out through the dry scratch of his throat. Someone presses another water bottle into his hand.

Napoleon shakes his head, as if that will do anything to dissuade the crowds around him, and tries again. “Illya,” he says, hauling himself to his feet and stumbling in the vague direction that those other medics had gone, trying to find a flash of silver, those obnoxious Mercedes colours, in the crowd. “Is he okay?”

It appears that someone eventually works out what he’s asking, and there’s an arm slipping around his waist for support as they shepherd him in a direction. The entire world is still spinning around him and he still feels like he could throw up at any moment, so for once Napoleon allows it. He’s pushed through the crowds and then sees, finally, the silver of Mercedes jackets. There are frantic voices rising through the air.

Someone shouts something and the jackets part, just enough for Napoleon to push his way through.

From where he’s sat on the ground, his entire body shaking out of sheer exhaustion, Illya looks up. There are medics crouching down next to him, more medics trying to fuss around Napoleon, but they barely register with him as he stares at Illya. “Doing okay, Cowboy?” Illya asks, and something deep in Napoleon’s chest is twisted out by the words until it starts to slowly unfurl.

He grins. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Peril,” he replies. Instead of the glare or snide remark that he’s expecting, Illya just looks up at him with a deep exhaustion.

“Neither did I,” he says quietly, and Napoleon can feel his smirk even out into something more honest in response.

He doesn’t quite make the decision himself, but between one moment and the next he’s standing in front of Illya, and he’s holding out his hand. Illya watches him carefully, but there’s something else in his expression now, something Napoleon can’t quite put a finger on but that sparks his curiosity once again in some strange sort of kinship. There’s some understanding passing between the two of them that he doubts either of them could articulate, even if they wanted to. They both know just how much the other had to give up for that comeback, and they both, somewhere, are astounded that they’re still breathing.

Slowly, Illya reaches up for him, and takes his hand. Napoleon hauls him up to his feet but overestimates his own strength, his fatigued muscles rebelling and sending him staggering. Illya snorts, stumbling with him until medics prop the both of them up. He reaches out for Napoleon but stops abruptly, his hand hovering in the air and the miles between them. Napoleon wants to step across, but his legs can’t quite respond to his thoughts.

Illya lets his hand drop, and the sound bleeds back into their world. “Loving your work, Cowboy,” he says, a tired grin on his lips, and then they are pulled apart by medics and officials and teammates, and Illya’s shredded silver shirt disappears from view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're finally starting to get past the rivalry- it can only go on from here, folks. Next chapter in particular will see the start of things beginning to change between them, but there's plenty of plot let to go, and we're not even a third of the way through the story yet...
> 
> The King of the Mountains is another jersey that is awarded to the cyclist who has the most points in the mountains, which are given out based on who reaches the various summits in a mountain climb first (and second, etc). It really is white with massive red polka dots, I don't know why. In order of importance, it goes yellow jersey, then green, then king of the mountains. Technically the other jerseys have other titles as well, the race for the yellow jersey is actually called the general classification race, whilst the one for the yellow jersey is the points classification race.
> 
> You can see why nobody uses those names, but 'polka dot jersey' doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well.
> 
> Also, if you didn't notice it in the chapter, go back and have a look at when Solo becomes Napoleon to Illya. It's not necessarily important, but it does give a bit of an insight into his character.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Insert Braveheart cry of freedom here*
> 
> Exams are finally finished! I'm at home right now and it's really great to not have to cook for myself, to be honest. But I have to get up before 4 the next morning to go and do horse competition things, so I'm actually getting up earlier whilst on holiday than I was when revising...
> 
> Anyway, now that I am free (for a month, I start a placement job in July which is mildly terrifying, but I'm just not thinking about it right now) here's another chapter! This is another long one, and given how much you all have enjoyed Illya and Napoleon's interactions so far, I think you'll like this one! When I was writing, this is the chapter when Bruce Springsteen's songs became important- I'll ramble about that a bit more in the end notes.

“You’re a damn lucky bastard, you know that?”

It takes Illya nearly five seconds to just turn his head to look at Oleg. “I’ve had worse,” he murmurs. Various doctors fuss around him, and he only endures them because he knows they have the final say as to whether he can continue riding in the Tour.

Oleg walks around him, surveying the mess that is Illya’s back. “I know you have,” he says. “Can you ride well enough to get that jersey back?” One of the doctors shoos him away and he returns to standing in front of Illya. Illya is exhausted enough that he just glances up at him, and nods.

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Oleg says, and he almost looks satisfied, for him. “They’ll patch you up well enough, and you can take this much better than that American possibly could.” He frowns, the slight hint of satisfaction disappearing swiftly from his face. “Stay away from him,” he says. “Solo is trouble.”

Illya raises one shoulder in a shrug, and then winces at the pull on the scrapes across his back. One of the doctors snaps something at him, but it’s in French, and he’s too tired to translate it. “He’ll be fine,” Illya says to Oleg. “He’s unpredictable, but he’ll be fine.”

Oleg looks deeply sceptical. “Whatever pact the two of you had on the road today, that’s over now,” he says. “And when you’re less exhausted we are going to have words about that, because that was stupid, even for you. Solo could have easily tricked you there, could have taken more seconds off you, all because you stopped to get him up off the ground.”

Illya shrugs again. “He knew he couldn’t get back to the front on his own,” he just says. Oleg doesn’t look convinced.

“We’ll have words about this, later,” he says, and Illya knows he means when there aren’t doctors in the room with them, and hordes of reporters possibly within earshot that could hear his shouting. He’s a little surprised Oleg doesn’t just damn them and shout at him anyway, and then he catches sight of himself in the mirror.

For a moment, he’s actually surprised at how bad he looks. He managed to avoid hitting his face into the road, but the lack of blood and bruises on his face are made up for by the look of utter exhaustion, pale skin and bags under his eyes. He can see the beginnings of the scrapes curling up around his shoulders, and the bruises are already beginning to spread down towards his chest. He moves slightly, and watches the muscles in his thighs spasm with detached interest. A doctor swats at him again.

Oleg is still talking, but Illya zones him out and replays the crash in his head, searching for an angle, a moment, where he could have made a different decision and stayed on the bike, avoided the mess of wheels and frames and bodies on the road. The various strategists and subordinates to Oleg have pored over the replays of the crash from every angle, and they had said he couldn’t have avoided it, but Illya keeps replaying the moment in his head, trying to find that split second that could have changed everything.

In his exhausted state, he keeps thinking that split second was when, hours before the crash, he had drawn alongside the idiot who had brought them all down, and could have tipped him off the road and stopped the whole thing happening in the first place. He doesn’t say that out loud, of course.

Finally, after far too much poking and prodding that Illya endures out of years of practice, the doctors clear him to ride tomorrow, and clear out under Oleg’s glare. Illya braces himself, sees himself in the mirror as he pulls himself up despite the ache seemingly deep in his bones, muscle memory taking over. Oleg’s gaze flickers down, and Illya follows to see that somehow, without his knowledge, his hands have clenched into fists on his thighs.

Oleg sighs. “I suppose I should have expected that,” he says, and his voice almost kind. “I’ll tell you later how stupid you were for actually stopping and helping up a rival cyclist, especially that damn American run by Sanders, but it can wait for when you’re not falling asleep in front of me. Go and get some food, get some sleep, and I will shout some sense into you later.” He tosses Illya a shirt, and then stands there and watches as Illya struggles to get his arms up enough to put it on.

“Go on, get out of here,” Oleg says when he finally gets to his feet, and something that’s been fraying for a long time inside Illya gives just a little more.

“I’m never going to be exactly what you want me to be,” he says quietly. “And I’m only going to disappoint you if you don’t realise that. You know I’ll do everything I can for this team, and you can’t expect any more than that from me.” He shrugs as best he can, the gauze across his scrapes pulling at his skin. “I’ll see you later.”

0-o-0-o-0

He can’t sleep. He would almost find the situation amusing, if he weren’t so fucking exhausted. He’s had probably the most exhausting day of his career so far, nearly spent everything after that damn crash, and yet here he is, wandering around the hotel gardens at two in the morning.

Napoleon sighs, and flicks through his phone for a song that might make him tired. He twists the headphone cord around one finger, winding it tight, until he can feel the tip of his finger tingling. He lets go, and the cord unwinds, spooling out across his palm.

He finally settles on Springsteen, because even though it will do nothing to help him sleep, the Boss is something engraved too deep into him to pass over. His entire body aches from the crash, and he’s exhausted, but he can’t seem to stop. Through the headphones, Springsteen sings in a low murmur.

Napoleon wanders out onto one of the balconies that overlooks the hotel gardens, spinning his phone in his hand. The moon is nearly full, but there’s cloud scudding across it, and he can only just make out the vague shapes of the houses on the other side of the garden. They’re in the Alps now, and Napoleon just knows that if he could actually see the view from this balcony, if he could see the valley stretching out below him, the pine trees slowly giving way to rock as they stretch up the mountainside, splayed fingers reaching for the sky, then he knows he would fall in love with this place all over again.

There’s something about staring out at the darkness, in the middle of the night when he knows what’s out there but he can’t quite be sure, can’t see it with his own eyes, that makes it all the more fascinating. He’s never been able to stay away from just the right amount of mystery, and he’s never really tried.

He wonders, briefly, what would have happened if he had. Whether he would still be standing here, in the biggest race of his life, if he hadn’t listened to that little voice inside his head that told him to go, to leave, to see what the world had to offer to a teenager with no past that he wanted to remember, and a future that could become anything with enough charm and a bit of luck. He’d had help, had a hand stretched out to him for no good reason that he could see, but it had been that little voice inside his head that had told him to take it, to take an inch and turn it into a mile and do something with it that was more than he could have believed.

Napoleon huffs a brief laugh at himself. It’s strange, how he finds himself willing to be so much more honest with himself in the darkness. He supposes it’s merely because there’s nobody else around to see him, all sensible people asleep in their beds, but the part of him that’s never really grown up insists that the darkness is enticing, and holds his secrets well.

He’s staring out at nothing, at vague blurred outlines of shadows, when there’s movement below him in the gardens.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Napoleon bites out as someone seemingly steps out of the shadows, coalescing into solid form. “Warn a man before you do that, why don’t you?”

The person steps closer, and Napoleon suppresses a sigh as he sees who it is. “Of course,” he mutters. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

From a couple metres below him, standing in the gardens, Illya looks up at him. “Why are you awake?” he asks, and the simplicity of the question almost throws Napoleon, for a couple of seconds. Somehow, he’d been expecting something else, some snide barb like the ones they’d exchanged the past week, or even the banter that they’d slowly been slipping into recently, when they both forgot they were meant to hate each other. Simplicity, an honest question, was not what he had expected.

Napoleon pauses. “Can’t sleep,” he says eventually. “Even with everything that’s happened today.” He eyes Illya, taking in the sweatpants riding low on his hips, the shirt that looks worn and faded, so far as he can tell in the darkness. It looks like he’s just rolled out of bed. “You?”

Illya shrugs, and then winces. “Same,” he says, and his words and flat and quiet in the dark. “Got four hours, but woke up. Trying to walk myself back to sleep.” He pauses, as if he hadn’t meant to say that much, but it had slipped out in the darkness.

“Are you just going to stand there and not say anything?” Napoleon asks after a long few seconds, where Illya just stares up at him out of the darkness.

“Because you were making such illuminating conversation, Cowboy,” Illya mutters, but he heads for the steps leading up from the gardens to the balcony. Napoleon watches him ascend, noting the stiffness in his walk, the tension sitting on his shoulders, but he does nothing with it.

Illya pauses at the top of the steps, and then closes the distance between the two of them and leans against the wooden railing, a few feet between them. Napoleon suppresses a shudder, because Illya moves more silently than he could have guessed, and he thinks he might not have realised he was here if he wasn’t looking at him. Perhaps it is fanciful thinking, but then he can never stay away from mystery.

Illya glances over at him. “What are you listening to?” he asks abruptly. Napoleon glances down at the phone in his hand, headphone cord dangling through his fingers. He twines it around a knuckle.

“Oh, it’s Springsteen,” he says. He huffs the barest of laughs. “Can take the man out of America, but can’t quite take America out of the man, I suppose.” He looks over at Illya. “Please tell me you know who Springsteen is. You know, the Boss?”

Illya snorts. “Of course I know who he is,” he mutters. “Don’t listen to his music, but your…Western, it has spread everywhere.” He huffs. “Like virus,” he says decisively. “Corrupts everything.”

“Oh, like your attempt at communism went so well,” Napoleon retorts. His blood starts to sing, rising to the challenge. That urge to twist and prod, to satisfy his incessant curiosity, surfaces again. “How many died because of that? How many are still persecuted in your country?”

Illya stiffens. “Don’t talk about things you know nothing about,” he snaps. “You have no idea…” He cuts himself, swallowing heavily. “You don’t know,” he says, his voice quieter, but no less final. “You can’t.”

“Well then, don’t try and presume you know anything about the good ol’ US of A,” Napoleon says, more than a little sarcasm colouring his voice, but Illya doesn’t reply. His hands are clenched around the wooden railing in front of them, and Napoleon knows if there was enough light to see by, his knuckles would be white. The voice whispering to him to push, to unearth the truths buried, is tempered and quietened by a softer voice. It sounds awfully like concern.

“No matter what you might think, I didn’t actually say anything just now to try to upset you,” he says cautiously. “What is it?”

He doesn’t know if it’s their exhaustion, the painkillers they’re probably both still on, or the fact that it’s dark, and late, and the night is wrapping itself around them, but Illya doesn’t snap, or stalk off, or do any of the things Napoleon thought he might. Instead, he just swallows again, and shakes his head. “I haven’t lived in Russia for years,” he says quietly, almost to himself. “Maybe I don’t know, either.”

“Well, if that’s the case then I can hardly comment at all on America,” Napoleon says, forcing his voice to brighten, to counter the sudden weariness that has infused Illya’s. “I haven’t lived there for, oh, over a decade. Europe is much more interesting.”

Illya snorts. “Yes, it is,” he says. “America is so…”

“American?” Napoleon offers, a grin curling his lips. “I know.”

Illya nods, but there’s a tension sitting across his shoulders. He leans more heavily against the balcony, and Napoleon feels an odd desire to do something to make the line of his shoulders relax, to make his hands uncurl from around the railing. The rational part of him reminds him that impulsivity isn’t always a good idea, but it’s quickly overruled by the curiosity that seems to thrum through him every time he’s around Illya.

“Have you ever listened to Springsteen?” he asks abruptly, cutting through the silence that had built up between the two of them as they’d been standing there, staring out at the same view that neither of them can actually see. Illya frowns, thrown off by the sudden question, but eventually shakes his head.

“No,” he mutters.

Napoleon unwinds his headphones. “Want to try it?” he offers. “Believe it or not, but there are a few things that America has done well. The Boss is definitely one of them.”

Illya looks like he’s about to scoff at Napoleon’s declaration, but the sound never quite leaves his lips. “Why?” he asks, and in the bare light they have to see by, from the low lamp a few feet away, he looks as if he hadn’t intended to ask.

“Why what?” Napoleon asks, because he wants to see if Illya will back out of asking. To his credit, he doesn’t, merely pressing his lips together before he speaks again.

“Why do you like it?” Illya asks simply. “What is it about…Springsteen that makes him good?”

Napoleon stares at him for a moment. He doesn’t think he’s ever tried to articulate why Springsteen is one of the few things he’d held onto from the childhood he tries so hard to put behind him, why he places so much importance in the songs that he first heard over the radio, when he could sneak downstairs and turn it on for a few precious minutes before the noise woke anyone up. He tries not to think about it much, but in the darkness, the knowledge of mountains out beyond them but no proof of their existence, the thoughts are pulled from the deeper parts of him and given words, insufficient as they may be.

There’s a part of him, small but insistent, that is trying to push some semblance of explanation past his lips, that is begging him to let someone listen. What’s even stranger is that for some reason, he wants Illya to be the one to hear it. That voice that hasn’t ever listened to reason and logical thought is telling him that Illya, out of the many different people he’s encountered through his life in Europe, may be one of the few who understands.

But the words never quite make it, sit on the tip of his tongue but no further. “I grew up with it,” Napoleon says eventually, and he’s sure Illya sees the not-quite-lies there, the truths that he’s skirting around because he doesn’t have the words for it, but Illya says nothing.

“I don’t quite know what appeals to me about his songs,” Napoleon continues, mulling the words over even as they leave his mouth. “It’s not like I can really relate to what he’s singing about a lot of the time, at least not superficially. But there’s something more to his songs, and that I guess I can relate to.” He shrugs slightly. “He’s honest about the past, I suppose. He’s honest about what it was, about what he wants to leave behind and the nostalgia of what he wishes he could have once more. He’s honest about how broken the supposed American dream is, the possibilities of redemption. It’s impossible to describe, really.”

To his surprise, Illya just nods, and then holds out a hand. Napoleon stares at it for a few seconds, until Illya levels him with a look. “Can’t listen to music without headphones, Cowboy,” he says dryly.

Napoleon stifles a laugh, and hands the headphones over. His fingers brush against Illya’s palm, and even with that brief touch he can feel the calluses there, the heat of his skin. Illya’s hand curls around the headphones.

“Right,” Napoleon says, pulling his gaze away from the curl of Illya’s fingers. “I need to find a song.”

Illya just waves one hand. “I don’t care which one,” he mutters.

“No, no, if this is your first Springsteen song it has to be right,” Napoleon declares. “This is going to shape your entire foundation for music from here on out. I have to pick exactly the right song for you to hear, Peril, not just any random one. There are over three hundred songs to pick from. I’ve got to get this right.”

Illya rolls his eyes, but waits as Napoleon scrolls through the songs. He briefly considers _Dancing in the Dark_ , but then thinks it might be too much electronics. He hovers over _The River_ for a few moments, but then moves on. Some of them have too much history behind them to make sense to anyone who hasn’t followed Springsteen throughout the years, especially for someone who has only heard of Springsteen, probably, through the dark tint of the Russian view of America. _Wrecking Ball_ is quietly brilliant, but won’t have as much impact on anyone who doesn’t know about the Giants and their stadium.

“ _Land of Hope and Dreams_ , maybe,” Napoleon muses, thumb hovering over the song. Illya scoffs.

“American sentimentalism,” he says. “Don’t think I don’t recognise that line from your anthem.”

“The song is actually about trying to navigate through a broken country,” Napoleon says, his voice sharp. “And about still having hope that somewhere out there there’s a life that’s worth living, that it isn’t something we should stop looking for. That there is a world somewhere in the future where, I don’t know, people aren’t killed for their race or who they love, or put aside and forgotten just because they aren’t considered human enough.” The heat in his voice surprises him, but then in the darkness he remembers first hearing the song a few years ago when it came out, and that sharp, painful hope that he’d thought had been killed rising up in his chest. He hadn’t realised that there was still some part of him, buried deep, that believed in what Springsteen had somehow managed to put into words.

“But if you hate American sentimentalism so much, then fine,” he finishes, scrolling past the song. Illya looks almost startled, and is quiet for a long moment.

“If it means that much to you,” he says hesitantly, and Napoleon actually looks up at the quiet sincerity in his voice. He shakes his head.

“It wouldn’t actually be the right song, I think,” he says, and Illya relaxes as if his words had been some sort of forgiveness. Napoleon supposes, that in the darkness, they might have been.

“It’s not just me,” he suddenly murmurs, and even though he’s still staring at his phone, he can feel the weight of Illya’s gaze on him. He isn’t sure where the words came from, but for some reason he wants to explain, wants to dredge up more inadequate words to try and put into some shape or form why it matters to him so much.

“It’s not… you might think it’s only music, only some capitalist making money off of his voice and a guitar, but Springsteen,” he sighs, thumb hovering over _Jungleland_ before moving on, “he’s put into words so much of what is wrong with the lives so many people are living. There’s so much regret, and resignation over what the country, the world, is becoming, but beneath it all there’s still a belief that we can be better, someday. People need to hear that. They need to know it can be better than what it is now.”

Illya is still staring at him, and Napoleon sees him nod, slowly, out of the corner of his eye. “I can understand that,” he murmurs. There’s that spark of curiosity in Napoleon’s chest again, something in the tilt of Illya’s head, the clench of his jaw as he looks away out across where the valley would be, if it were light, that makes him want to know more.

He knows which song he should pick, now, and he scrolls through quickly until he finds it. “This is probably his best song,” he says, thumb hovering over the title. “This is what Springsteen is, what…” Napoleon trails off. “Just listen to it, and see what you think.”

He presses play.

Illya stares out at the darkness and Napoleon can’t help but watch him. He can hear the faintest strains of the guitar and harmonica from the headphones, and he finds himself mouthing the words under his breath. He wishes, just for a moment, that they were on the road. He knows there’s nothing like tearing down a road with the wind in his hair, the roar around him drowning out everything but Springsteen’s low voice in his ears, calling out for him to _show a little faith, there’s magic in the night_. But here in the darkness, the possibility of the valley and everything else stretching out in front of them, this is good enough.

There’s a frown on Illya’s face, but Napoleon watches as it smooths out. Staring out across at where the valley would be, his expression slowly shifts from doubt to surprise, and then into something else that Napoleon knows was on his face, the first time he heard this song. It’s not quite awe, it’s not as simple as that, but it’s close.

The song fades out, and Napoleon pauses the next one before it can begin. Illya is still staring out at the darkness, and Napoleon nudges him. “Well?” he asks.

Illya swallows, and ducks his head, and whatever it was, it breaks and quietly dissolves into the night. “It’s…it’s good,” he says. “Very good. For American.”

Napoleon huffs a laugh without really meaning to. “You can admit you like something American,” he says. “Nobody else will hear.” A quick smile flits across Illya’s lips at that, and he ducks his head again.

“I was…surprised,” he says eventually. “It wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

“It never is, when it comes to Springsteen,” Napoleon says. “And yet it’s exactly what you wanted to hear.”

He falls silent, and Illya does too. Napoleon can’t help but keep glancing over at him, and each moment longer Illya stays there, leaning next to him on the balcony railing, that curiosity burning in his chest only grows.

Eventually Illya straightens up. “Someone will notice if I’m gone too long,” he says, and he almost sounds reluctant, in the darkness. “I should get some sleep.”

“Yeah, I should try and get back to sleep too,” Napoleon murmurs. He stretches out slightly, wincing at the pull across his back, the aching and sore muscles from the crash earlier, the scrapes now starting to scab over across his shoulders. “And take more painkillers, I think. Tomorrow won’t be fun.”

Illya hums in agreement. “Not too bad a stage, I think,” he says. “And then a rest day.” He huffs a brief laugh. “Stay in bed all day.”

“No, we’ll have to do interviews all day, and answer the same questions over and over again,” Napoleon points out. “Especially the two of us. And we’ll inevitably get that idiot from CNN who knows nothing about the Tour.” Illya scoffs, and a brief grin curls his lips.

Napoleon glances over at him as Illya turns away, heading for the steps. “You know,” he starts, and Illya pauses, looking back over his shoulder. Napoleon shrugs. “We’re really not doing very well at the whole mortal enemies thing the press loves spinning, Peril. We should be trying harder to hate each other.”

He’s not sure what had prompted him to say that, but Illya laughs that short laugh of his, and shakes his head. “Too much effort to hate you, Cowboy,” he says. “Not worth it for an American.”

“I’m wounded, Peril,” Napoleon replies with a grin of his own. “Besides, technically I’m a French citizen. I’ve been living here long enough for that.”

“Don’t let the French hear you say that,” Illya says. “They’ll riot.”

“They always riot, Peril,” Napoleon points out. “That’s the secret of the French.” Illya snorts in amusement, and stretches out his back again.

“I should…”

“Yeah, me too,” Napoleon says. He steps away from the balcony. “See you on the road, I suppose, then, Peril.”

Illya nods. “See you tomorrow, Cowboy,” he replies. He melts back into the darkness, and Napoleon is alone on the porch again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a couple clues as to Illya's backstory in this chapter, so if anyone wants to have a guess (it's not a massive leap at all from the movie, but it is somewhat different) I'll be intrigued to see if people have picked up on the specific hints I've left lying around.
> 
> Like I said in the beginning notes, this story ended up being heavily influenced by the songs of Bruce Springsteen, the Boss. I grew up on his songs, even though I'm British (I have relatives in Boston) and his songs somehow became a really important part of the process of writing this story. Don't worry if you don't know his songs, but please do listen to some of them, because he's brilliant! The song that Illya listens to is Thunder Road, perhaps one of his most famous.
> 
> I will link the songs mentioned each chapter in these end notes, so you can go and listen to them afterwards if you want. Both Thunder Road and Land of Hope and Dreams were particularly influential on this chapter and the story as a whole, and are two of my favourite Springsteen songs, so please listen to them if you can.
> 
>  
> 
> [ _Land of Hope and Dreams_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTDNW9BfzfY)  
> [ _Thunder Road_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGBXnw86Mgc)  
> [ _The River_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAB4vOkL6cE)  
> [ _Wrecking Ball_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2KNqxwt4Qg)  
> [_Jungleland_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR_0nbEzVdY)  
> [ _Dancing in the Dark_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129kuDCQtHs)
> 
>  
> 
> The title of this story comes from Land of Hope and Dreams.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in a bit of a mopey mood today- a combination of leaving uni for the summer and some other things- so I'm being a bit self indulgent and posting a chapter, so all of your nice comments cheer me up (I'll be fine, don't worry, I'm just indulging in self-pity for a day or two before getting my shit together).
> 
> This is another long chapter, featuring more late night conversations (for the people who have followed me from the beginning of my TMFU fics, you might have noticed this is becoming somewhat of a trope for me. I actually can't stop myself).

Illya’s half-formed thought that last night was a painkiller and sleep-deprivation induced dream is abruptly killed when Napoleon pulls up next to him on the road as they wait for everyone to get into place and hums a few lines to the song under his breath. “ _Oh-oh, come take my hand_ ,” he sings in a low voice, leaning over so that only Illya can hear him. “ _We’re riding out tonight to case the promised land.”_

“You have terrible voice, Cowboy,” Illya says without looking at him as he fiddles with his pedals. He’s lying, of course. Napoleon’s voice isn’t anything as good as Springsteen’s, but just hearing the low murmur of the words sends a shiver down his spine, and something deep in his stomach curls a little tighter. His fingers grip the handlebars, running over the grooves. He resists the urge to reach for the chain he can see around Napoleon’s neck.

“I’d ask you to prove you’re better, but we’re hardly in that stage of the relationship yet,” Napoleon says, a grin curling his lips. “Besides, you don’t know the words to any Springsteen songs yet.”

“Yet?” Illya asks, arching a brow. “Is there clause in my contract that says I have to learn them?”

“Well, you can hardly stay away now that you’ve heard one,” Napoleon points out. “Come on, you must have at least thought about looking up more songs of his.” He fiddles with his gears, snapping through until he’s satisfied. Up ahead, people are finally getting into some sort of place, but they both know it will be at least another ten minutes before they’re going anywhere. “You can’t ignore the Boss, you know.”

Illya sniffs. “Unlike some impatient Americans, I am Russian. I have control.” He gives Napoleon a look. “You should try it sometime, Cowboy.”

Napoleon smirks. “Now, Peril, where would be the fun in that?”

Illya rolls his eyes, and stretches out his shoulders once again. He feels even worse today after the crash, doped up on as many painkillers as are legal for the Tour, which is nowhere near enough. Napoleon, he notices, looks like he isn’t much better, and he can just see the padding of the bandages under the yellow jersey.

“Going to make it through today, Cowboy?” he asks after a few long seconds of silence, where Napoleon is just staring at the road ahead. Napoleon, to his surprise, shrugs.

“Don’t have much of a choice,” he says. “My shoulders hurt like hell, and I have bruises on my bruises, but my legs still work, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Illya huffs a laugh at that, because it’s exactly what he had been thinking this morning.

“I miss painkillers,” Napoleon says abruptly, rolling his shoulders and wincing at the movement. “I really miss proper painkillers.”

Illya nods. He’s used to functioning on little sleep or pushing through the pain to keep working, he’s been doing it well before the Tour, but not being allowed even caffeine, let alone decent painkillers, is a new kind of torture. Even after years in the Tour, he’s still not quite used to it.

“I miss coffee,” he says without really meaning to, and Napoleon groans.

“God, don’t remind me,” he says. “First thing I’m going to do when I finish this damn Tour is sit down and eat all the foods I’m not allowed right now. And coffee, lots of coffee. And pastries, and pizza and fries, and some proper steak, and not a protein shake in sight.”

“All at the same time?” Illya asks. “Steak and pastry doesn’t sound like good combination.”

“You just don’t have enough imagination,” Napoleon replies promptly. "You would be surprised at what things some people throw together that turn out to be amazing. Case in point, some weird Americans once decided to try Oreos and bacon together, and it turns out it’s rather good.”

Illya frowns. “What are Oreos?” he asks. Napoleon stares at him.

“What are Oreos?” he repeats. “Peril, have you never had an Oreo?”

“Is it another disgusting American food?” Illya asks. “In that case no, I have not had an Oreo, and I don’t ever want to. You put sugar in everything, Cowboy. _Everything_.”

“Well, it certainly makes it taste better than your food, Peril,” Napoleon shoots back. “All you know how to do is boil things.”

“We know how to make vodka,” Illya says decisively. “That is all we need.”

Napoleon chokes on a laugh, and shakes his head. “Honestly, you might be right.” He laughs again, a short huff that still makes Illya shiver slightly, and he can’t help but glance at the line of Napoleon’s throat as he tips his head back and looks up at the sky, the curl of his lips as he grins. Something quivers hopefully deep within him, and he pushes it back down. He can’t deal with that now, not when the stage is about to start.

“Solo!” someone calls from up ahead. “Come get in position, or Sanders is going to start kicking our arses.”

Illya arches a brow, and Napoleon shrugs. “Got to jump when the boss says so,” he says. “Well, cycle, I suppose. Have fun on the roads, Peril. I’m sure I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He moves off, throwing a final grin over his shoulder.

Illya stares after him for what is probably too long, something curling deep in his stomach. He can’t help but think that Napoleon was right, last night. They are doing a terrible job at hating each other.

Illya doesn’t know why he stayed on that balcony last night, why he went up there in the first place, why when Napoleon held out the headphones to him he took them. If he doesn’t want to look too closely at it, he would blame the painkillers he was on, the lack of sleep, the probable slight concussion he’d gotten from the crash. But he knows it’s more, he knows that he reached out for those headphones because part of him wanted to stay. Part of him wanted to lean on that balcony next to Napoleon and talk, and for probably the first time in years Illya had felt words on the tip of his tongue that he hadn’t spoken to anyone save Gaby.

He was too much of a coward to say them, but still. It has to count for something.

Someone claps him on the back and Illya jerks out of his thoughts. “What?” he snaps at Vitaly as the other cyclist comes up beside him.

Vitaly gives him a look. “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” he says, and Illya shakes his head.

“That makes no sense,” he says. “What has the side of a bed got to do with-”

“It’s an expression, idiot,” Vitaly says, cutting him off. “How are the shoulders?”

“Sore,” Illya says, and he means it. There’s a fierce ache throughout his body from the crash yesterday, and it’s just enough that he can’t ignore it. He’s had worse, he’s fought on through worse, but that doesn’t make this much easier.

“Yeah, well at least Solo took the brunt of the fall, same as you,” Vitaly says, trying to sound comforting. “You’re not going to have to worry about him being in better shape than you.”

Illya remembers Napoleon leaning on the balcony last night, the stiffness in his movements, the occasional wince crossing his face when he moved wrong and his muscles seized. He doesn’t think Napoleon had even bothered hiding it last night, but then neither did he.

He’s still curious about what was lurking beneath the surface, when Napoleon was talking about Springsteen. He hasn’t listened to anymore of his songs yet, despite his curiosity, but he recognised in Napoleon’s voice the inability to describe the true meaning of something, the hurried attempts to make sense out of intangibility. Illya wonders whether, when Napoleon had snarled at him days ago that everyone had a _fucking origin story_ , he’d been thinking of his own.

Vitaly nudges him, and Illya blinks. “He’ll be just as bad as me, today,” he says quietly, watching the yellow jersey up ahead of him slowly be swamped by the red and black of Alfa Romeo. “Maybe worse. He crashed before I did, and I had more time to slow down.”

“Take advantage of it, then,” Vitaly says with a grin. “That’s not breaking any of the stupid unspoken rules in this race, it’s just good strategy. No reason you can’t push him today, make him tired, and then snatch the jersey back after the rest day when you’re more recovered than him.”

Illya gives him a look. “I know,” he says. “What do you think Oleg spent half an hour yelling at me about this morning?”

The race finally begins, and Illya realises he is becoming more used to having the _domestiques_ answer to him, being able to ask for someone else to come to the front and for the Mercedes group to quietly and efficiently respond. He’s not sure how he can go back to the obscurity of being a mere _domestique_ again, not after he’s had such a taste of what he could be.

Even with the crash yesterday, Illya knows that this Tour is a two-man race between him and Napoleon. Everyone else is over a minute behind them, and losing ground every day. This is going to end with either him or Napoleon wearing that yellow jersey, and nobody else.

He thinks that still hasn’t really sunken in yet. He thinks it might elude him until he’s either standing on the podium, or watching Napoleon take his place.

0-o-0-o-0

The stage ends, as each stage tends to do. Illya staggers off his bike and all but collapses on the tarmac, heaving in gulps of air as his body finally protests what he’d just made it do. There’s a constant noise around him, various people shouting and cameras flashing, but he ignores it and focuses on trying to slow down his breathing.

It takes Oleg nearly three minutes to make it to him, and there’s some sort of grim satisfaction on his face when he tells Illya that he’s shaved six seconds off of Napoleon’s lead over him, and that he now only has five more seconds before he’ll have the yellow jersey back in his hands. Illya can’t help the smile that curls his lips.

He glances up, and catches sight of Napoleon. He’s walking away, surrounded by the black and red of Alfa Romeo, and just as he’s about to disappear he turns, gaze sweeping the crowds. He catches Illya’s gaze, and holds it for a few long seconds.

Illya stares back, even though he hasn’t yet managed to get up from the tarmac, his whole body protesting. Napoleon looks tired, and Illya can see the way he’s standing, trying to stop his body trembling with exhaustion. He just nods, and for a brief moment a flicker of a smile comes across Napoleon’s face before someone drags him away.

Of course, the image haunts Illya for some reason he can’t explain, even in the privacy of his own head. He wakes up in the middle of the night seeing Napoleon staring at him from across the crowd of the finish line, that tilt to his head, that line of his jaw, and almost immediately knows he won’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon.

Illya snatches up his phone from the bedside table and sneaks out onto the balcony. For a moment he’s tempted to vault over the balcony railing and disappear into the darkness that is stretching out in front of him, a hollow feeling left over from the days of a pack on his back and a weapon in his hand. It soon leaves him, and he’s not sure whether he’s grateful.

Instead, he navigates his way down towards the hotel gardens, hoping that at least the feeling of grass under his feet will help him settle. He doesn’t manage to get to them.

It feels almost like déjà vu, only this time he finds Napoleon in an armchair on the veranda of the hotel, under a lamp and a book in his hand, rather than leaning against the railing. Napoleon glances up, and marks his place in the book. “Up again, Peril?” he asks. “Surely that’s not too good for you?”

Illya folds his arms, ignoring the curl in his stomach yet again. “Pot, kettle, Cowboy,” he says. “Why are you up?”

“I could ask the same,” Napoleon says, that infuriating grin just starting to curl his lips.

Illya shakes his head. He knows that he could walk away, could turn and head back inside to his bed and ignore the grin still on Napoleon’s lips. He doesn’t owe him anything, not even an explanation. They don’t have to be anything.

But he knows that if he walks away, he’ll just lie awake for hours in his bed. He knows that if he stays, it could be something that’s more than nothing, at least. Illya sighs, and pulls over a chair to sit opposite him.

“What are you reading?” he asks, in lieu of having anything else to say. Napoleon glances down, and turns the book so Illya can see the cover.

“ _Modernist Games_ ,” Napoleon says. “It’s a collection of essays on a painting by Cézanne. I’m reading it as background for my thesis.” The front of the book is presumably the painting itself, three men playing cards round a small table. Illya vaguely recognises it, but nothing more.

“You’re…you’re doing a thesis?” he asks. “How?”

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “I’m halfway through a degree on Art History,” he explains. “Part time, of course. It’s on Cézanne, and a few specific paintings of his. I do most of it in the off season, but there’s always more reading to do.” He huffs a laugh at himself, turning the book over in his hands. “Everyone has an opinion on Cézanne.”

Illya stares at him, turning the new piece of information over in his head, trying to make sense of it. “Is this…is it not enough?” he asks incredulously, not quite able to piece in this new aspect of Napoleon he had no idea about. He wonders how incomplete his view is of the man sitting opposite him, what else he has hidden away that he doesn’t know about.

He wonders what Napoleon sees of him. His past is a yawning abyss that he likes to steer clear of if he can, and Napoleon cannot know anything about him. He wonders what he looks like, sitting across from him.

Napoleon is looking at him expectantly, and Illya tries to corral his thoughts into something more coherent. “This,” he says, waving his hand around them. “Everything you’ve won. The Tour, the championships… is it not enough?”

There’s a smirk on Napoleon’s lips. “American, remember,” he says. “Curiosity is a terrible trait I don’t think I’ll ever overcome, and it’s accompanied by a big enough ego to think I can do it all.” He shrugs. “So far, it’s all going well enough.”

Illya scoffs. “Up until point where it crashes and burns,” he points out. “Things always look good up until they aren’t.”

Napoleon’s smirk becomes less genuine. “And I suppose you would know about that, would you?” he asks.

Something stirs within Illya’s chest, and he looks up to hold Napoleon’s gaze. “Yes,” he says quietly. “I would.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “Well, Peril, it looks like we both have our secrets, then,” he says slyly. He leans back in his chair fixes Illya with a look. Illya holds it easily. He’s had plenty of practice over the years, staring down people who think they are better than him. Whether they were or not was always irrelevant, but he learned that it didn’t matter much as long as he didn’t look away.

“You know, I have been wondering,” Napoleon says. “When you lost the jersey, when you nearly broke my wrist- and thank you for that one, by the way- did you mean it?”

“Mean what?” Illya asks without quite thinking about it, and Napoleon grins. Too late, Illya realises the settings of a trap, one that he just walked straight into. He curses in his head, though careful to make sure none of it shows on his face. He hates wordplay, trying to tease the meaning out of a twisted mess of lies and metaphors and half-truths. Give him a clear objective any day.

“When you said that you’d dragged yourself up out of the gutter for this,” Napoleon says. “I’m curious. Did you mean it?”

Illya stares him down, says nothing until he can see the cracks in Napoleon’s expression. “What do you think?” he asks, his voice even. He can see the shift in Napoleon, something within him rising to the challenge, and he lets a slow smile spread over his lips. This, he knows. He might not be as clever as Napoleon with words, but he knows how people think. He knows when someone can’t back away from a challenge.

“Well, Peril, I think there’s probably some truth to it,” Napoleon says cautiously, watching Illya for a reaction. “Let’s see, typical poor child who grafted away until he finally broke through the ranks to become the star?” He studies Illya, and shakes his head. “No, perhaps not. Maybe injuries? Doctors telling you you’d never ride a bike again but you proved them all wrong?”

Illya scoffs. “You make it sound like fable, Cowboy,” he says. “Nothing so exciting.”

Napoleon pauses, suddenly. “Oh,” he says softly, and his voice has changed so much that Illya can’t help but be uneasy. Napoleon stares at him, his expression completely unreadable.

“Spit it out, Cowboy,” Illya says. “Make your guess.”

“You were being literal,” Napoleon says, and Illya is sure he keeps any trace off his face, but he thinks Napoleon realises he is right anyway. Napoleon nods slowly. “You really did drag yourself out of the gutter,” he murmurs. “Literally. Am I right?”

Illya is silent. He is sure that Napoleon can hear his heart hammering in his chest, but he keeps his face impassive. He thinks the only thing that stops him from getting up and walking away is that there isn’t a shred of that nauseating pity on Napoleon’s face right now, as if he understands what it is to be somewhere like that.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “It wasn’t often gutter, but when things got bad…yes.” A fierce heat suddenly burns through him, a desperation to make sure that Napoleon doesn’t say what he knows so many people would say if they knew. “Don’t pity me,” he snaps. “I don’t need your pity.”

“You don’t have it,” Napoleon says steadily. “Believe me, Peril, I know how it feels.”

Ilya almost scoffs, but something in Napoleon’s expression holds him back. Instead, he takes a breath, and lets his gaze slide from Napoleon’s face to the floor.

“My father was arrested when I was ten,” he said softly. “He had been politician, but he was accused of…I don’t know English word, stole money from government?”

“Embezzlement,” Napoleon offers, his voice soft in the darkness. Illya nods.

“That’s the word,” he says. He clears his throat, turning away for a moment to stare out at the darkness, only held at bay by the little lamp Napoleon has been reading by. After a few moments, the words feel steady again on the tip of his tongue.

“We didn’t live in luxury, before, but we were well off,” he says quietly. “After…nobody would look at us. My mother, she did what she could, but… it became harder. We lost house, and we were at mercy of few friends we had, and streets, for a while.”

“How long was a while?” Napoleon asks.

Illya shrugs, and can’t find the words for a few long moments. Napoleon just doesn’t say anything, and Illya is silently thankful for that. He doesn’t think he would still sit here if Napoleon tried to pry this out of him with his sly words.

“Long enough,” Illya says eventually, and the admission still hurts, still aches deep in his bones. “And we only got off streets because…”

He pauses. The words stick to his tongue and he chokes on them. When he dares look at Napoleon, his expression is unreadable. “You don’t have to tell me,” Napoleon says. “I don’t need to know.”

Illya laughs, abruptly. “We barely know each other, Cowboy,” he says. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.” He lets himself slump forwards, his hands hanging between his knees. “We really don’t hate each other like we should.”

“Come on now, Peril, where’s the sportsmanship in that?” Napoleon asks, a quick grin flitting across his face. “Isn’t that what they all drone on about anyway?”

Illya laughs, and it feels more natural this time. “It is same speech every year,” he says. “It gets very tiring. Russian officials just assume you all hate each other. Makes things easier for us, cuts down on wasted time.”

“Oh, I would prefer that to what Americans do,” Napoleon replies. “You haven’t tasted blind patriotism until you’ve been to an American football game.” Illya goes to speak, and Napoleon holds up a hand. “No, don’t argue with me about whether it’s really football or not. There’s a ball, occasionally a foot kicks it, ergo it’s football.” He laughs. “I get enough stick for this from literally every European I’ve ever met, and I’ve lived in France for years now.”

“But it’s not real football,” Illya feels like he has to say, if only to uphold the reputation of all Europeans. “And it makes no sense, Cowboy. Why watch people give each other brain damage for hours?”

“Because _‘Murica_ , that’s why,” Napoleon replies, a grin on his face as he puts a heavy southern twang on his accent. “Land of the free, terms and conditions apply.”

Illya can’t help but snort at that, and there’s an answering smile on Napoleon’s face. “Say what you like, Peril, but that has to be a better Southern accent than you could ever pull off,” he says.

“Is that challenge?” Illya asks. He knows that he’s taking the bait Napoleon is stringing along for him, but this is too interesting to turn away from. He thinks that Napoleon is magnetic, when they’re alone like this. It’s too hard to pull himself away, remind himself of the barriers and rules he’s set up over the years. This brash, arrogant American is slipping past all of them, and what’s worse is that Illya is letting him. Whatever Napoleon says about curiosity being an American trait, Illya can recognise the spark of it deep in his own stomach. He thinks it might be worth listening to it, just this once.

“It is if you want it to be,” Napoleon answers, a smirk tilting his lips.

Illya considers him for a moment, and then grins. “ _Du hast nie gesagt, von welchem Land du gesprochen hast_ ,” he says, and his grin widens at the confusion that briefly flickers over Napoleon’s face. “ _Deutschland hat auch eine südliche Region._ ”

“I honestly have no idea what you just said,” Napoleon says. “German, I presume?”

“You’re not the only one to know a lot of languages,” Illya replies, a smirk still on his lips. “That was Bavarian dialect. Southern Germany, obviously.” Napoleon blinks, and Illya huffs a laugh. “You didn’t say which country you meant,” he repeats in English. “That one is on you for not being…what is word?”

“Specific?” Napoleon fills in. He huffs a laugh. “Yes, I suppose that’s my fault there. Can you do a southern Russian accent?”

Illya scrunches up his nose. “We don’t have much difference, unless you go to remote places,” he says. “Only hints of countries we once invaded. But I think America beats us on that one.” Napoleon arches a brow, but nods, and Illya’s lips curl without him meaning them to. “Can you do southern French accent?”

“ _Ce n’est pas parfait,_ ” Napoleon answers, and his accent makes Illya snort and try to hide a laugh. _“_ _Et si je parlais devant des gens du sud, ils se moqueraient de moi. Mais c’est plutôt bon._ ” He pauses. “Though you can understand what I’m saying, so it’s not quite fair. How about Italian? _Puoi capirlo? Hai idea di cosa dico?”_ Illya just looks blankly at him, not bothering to try and pretend that he can speak a language he has no hope of understanding.

Napoleon, seeing his expression, grins. “ _Sei un uomo molto bello, sai. Non posso fare a meno di essere curioso. Non posso fare a meno di scoprire chi sei._ ” Illya has no idea what Napoleon has just said, so he shrugs, and doesn’t bother replying. Napoleon’s grin doesn’t dim.

“I suppose you’re not going to tell me what you just said,” Illya says, and isn’t surprised at all when Napoleon shakes his head.

“As long as you don’t talk about me in German to the press, I won’t do the same in Italian,” he says. “We should at least be open about whether we hate each other, Peril.”

Illya finds himself laughing. “I don’t understand you enough to hate you, Cowboy,” he says, and he thinks he might be telling the truth. The night makes it so much easier. “You make no sense.”

“Well, I try hard to be aloof and mysterious,” Napoleon says, and Illya honestly can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.

“Is that it?” Illya asks. “I thought that was just American arrogance.”

Napoleon fakes a gasp, pressing a hand to his chest. “Why Peril, I’m shocked you think so little of us,” he says, but there’s a curl to his lips that he can’t quite supress, and soon it takes over his expression. “To be fair, part of it is definitely American arrogance. It’s bred into us along with a sense of patriotism that verges on jingoistic, a taste for foods that are at least eighty percent sugar, and a deep obsessive love for the concept of freedom without any comprehension as to how badly we’re continuingly fucking that one up.” He huffs a laugh. “Could be worse, though. Could have to live off of potatoes.”

“That’s the Irish, Cowboy,” Illya points out. “We turn all our potatoes into vodka.”

There’s a grin on Napoleon’s face, and Illya finds something flutter in his chest to know that he’s the one who put it there. “Fair enough, Peril,” he says, and his voice is soft in the darkness. Napoleon flips through his book, fiddling with the pencil that Illya only just notices now, twisting it between his fingers. Illya watches the pencil for a few long seconds.

“Cézanne,” he says eventually. “Why are you studying him?”

He tries to ignore the sudden leap in his chest when Napoleon looks up at him and smiles. “Are you sure you want to start this?” he asks. “I have another horrible American tendency to not shut up, especially not about something I’m passionate about.”

Illya shrugs. “If you accept that American football isn’t real football, then I’ll listen,” he says, and he can’t help the grin that curls across his lips as Napoleon starts to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lines that Napoleon sings at the beginning are from Thunder Road- I'm so pleased about the amount of people who commented saying they've listened to Springsteen and are enjoying his songs!
> 
> The book Napoleon is reading is about a modernist painting by Cezanne, The Card Players. This is where the arts professor AU, Paint, came from- initially it was going to be a sequel to this story, where Napoleon has retired and is teaching, with Illya still cycling, but it spiralled out of control and became a story of it's own (which has a sequel in the works and is slowly turning into a series because I have no self-control, help).
> 
> Translations:  
> ' _Du hast nie gesagt, von welchem Land du gesprochen hast. Deutschland hat auch eine südliche Region._ ': 'You did not say which country you meant. Germany also has a southern region.'  
> ' _Ce n’est pas parfait. Et si je parlais devant des gens du sud, ils se moqueraient de moi. Mais c’est plutôt bon._ ': 'It isn't perfect, and if I spoke in front of someone from the south, they would make fun of me, but it's fairly good.'  
> ' _Puoi capirlo? Hai idea di cosa dico?_ ': 'Can you understand this? Do you have any idea what I'm saying?'  
> ' _Sei un uomo molto bello, sai. Non posso fare a meno di essere curioso. Non posso fare a meno di scoprire chi sei._ ': 'You're a very handsome man, you know. I can't help being curious. I can't help but want to find out who you are.'
> 
> Thanks again to TerresDeBrume for the help with the French! If anyone would like to correct my German or Italian, please do!
> 
> One final thing: for everyone out there who falls into the broad, broad box of 'not straight', whatever flavour of the rainbow you might be, HAPPY PRIDE MONTH. I am not eloquent enough to put into words my feelings about Pride, so here's part of one of my favourite poems about Pride:
> 
> we are not unique among minorities  
> in that we collect our heritage through broken bits of history and research in a world constantly working to make those misfit bits go away  
> but we are unique in that when we try to prove our legacy  
> we can be laughed down   
> or re-erased  
> or flat out ignored  
> but I swear to you   
> you have a history as old as Alexander the Great  
> as beautiful as Sappho  
> as dignified as Abraham Lincoln  
> and as proud as Eleanor Roosevelt.
> 
> The whole thing is [here](https://spondee-soliloquy.tumblr.com/post/151678338341/seventeen-things-you-have-to-learn-for-yourself)  
> To all of you out there, whether you've been out for years or you're not quite there yet, you are loved, and you should be proud.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EVERYONE.  
> THERE IS NOW FANART FOR THIS FIC.  
> The wonderful [Achilles_Angst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achilles_Angst/pseuds/Achilles_Angst) has done some [fanart](https://chaoticbelieverdreamer.tumblr.com/post/174669085230/so-this-is-some-fanart-i-did-for-an-ao3-fic-its) for this fic- this is literally the best thing ever, so pop on over to their tumblr [here](https://chaoticbelieverdreamer.tumblr.com/) to tell them how amazing it is!
> 
> This chapter contains more Gaby, and then more of the boys trying to get to know each other whilst trying to compete for the yellow jersey. I know I've been hinting to a few people that there's going to be a big change in plot soon, and a large upheaval, which is true, but just enjoy the relative calm before the storm for the next few chapters. I promise it will all be okay by the end of this story.

“If you’re going to hide in here, then pass me that wrench.”

Illya lurks briefly by the door, and then grabs the wrench on the side to toss to Gaby. She’s on her back, halfway under a bike, and had barely glanced at him when he had come in. “Vitaly keeps trashing his gears,” she gripes as Illya steps into the workshop and gingerly leans against the bench, trying not to disturb anything. Gaby has a particular way of setting out her workshop, he has learnt over the years, even if it looks like chaos to anyone else.

“He’s a sprinter, of course he does,” Illya replies, picking up a spanner and turning it over in his hands. Gaby hums something but doesn’t reply in words as such, intent on fixing whatever problem she’s dealing with. Illya doesn’t expect a reply, and doesn’t say anything else. Even just being around Gaby quiets the restless itch under his skin, the one that came back in force about half an hour ago, through his last interview of the day. It had been all he could do to sit there and answer the final questions, ignore the flashing of the cameras until he could finally get up and leave.

“Does Oleg know you’re here?” Gaby asks eventually, emerging from under the bike and tossing the wrench into an open toolkit.

Illya shrugs. “Probably,” he replies. “It’s not like this place is hard to find.” He glances at the rows of bikes stacked at the back of the workshop, and then the wide double doors that currently open out onto the square of the town they’re staying in for the rest day. He can see some of the other teams’ temporary mechanic stations across from them, and a few team buses that haven’t been moved elsewhere yet. The familiar Alfa Romeo bus is parked almost directly opposite them.

“Fed up of interviews, then?” Gaby asks as she reaches round Illya to grab something else and then sets to work on another bike, partially deconstructed up on a stand. Illya shrugs again, and fiddles with the spanner in his hands.

“You would think they come up with some better questions to ask,” he says, attempting to deflect, but Gaby fixes him with a look, and any defences wilt under it. “Feeling restless,” he admits. “Still being in pain from crash doesn’t help.”

Gaby hums. “Pass me the screwdriver to your left, will you?” she asks, and Illya hands it over. She’s silent for another few seconds as she adjusts something, and then she sits back. The bike, even missing its wheels and up on a stand, manages to make her look small, when Illya looks through the frame at her.

“This is meant to be a rest day,” she says, pulling a gearbox into her lap and stabbing at it viciously. “I don’t know why the idiots make you do interviews all day, but it doesn’t help any of you. You need sleep, and food, not some _Idioten_ asking you the same questions over and over again.” Illya huffs a laugh at that, but Gaby scowls, and continues to beat the gearbox into submission.

“You going to be ready for tomorrow?” she asks. “You’re really hitting the Alps for the next week, and I really don’t want to see you throwing up again.”

“No concussions, remember?” Illya says. “Promise.”

Gaby points the screwdriver at him, and he can’t help but feel fond at her expression. “I’m going to hold you to that,” she says. “And you owe me a bottle of vodka if you break that promise. A good bottle, not some cheap French shit. Russian vodka.”

Illya just nods. He finds that when Gaby gets going like this, it’s best to just nod, and try to remember later what it is he has agreed to. He lets her talk, venting her frustrations at the Tour officials, the mechanics of the other teams, the weather conditions and what they’re doing to the wheels, and anything else that has caught her ire. Illya smirks slightly when Gaby slips into German, English apparently not good enough a language to vent in.

He lets the tension bleed from his shoulders as he listens to her rant, occasionally agreeing and nodding when he feels her gaze on him. The restlessness surging beneath his skin slowly quietens and calms down, diminishing to a slight itch that he’s long become used to. He smiles fondly at Gaby, sitting there on the floor of the workshop with a gearbox in pieces around her.

The sunlight coming through the open doors abruptly cuts off, and Gaby’s tirade suddenly stops as they both turn to the figure silhouetted in the doorway. There’s a very brief moment of silence, and then Gaby surges to her feet, a scowl on her face.

“You,” she spits. “What are you doing in my workshop?”

“Still in German, Gaby,” Illya reminds her as the silhouette coalesces into Napoleon, lounging against the door. He turns to him. “Why are you here, Cowboy?” he asks wearily.

Napoleon smirks slightly. “Oleg is looking for you,” he says. “They want us to do a joint interview or something, and I’d seen you wander off this way, so I came looking before your trainer snaps your head off.”

Illya groans, and lets his head fall back against the wall. “I thought we were done,” he mutters. He sighs, and sets down the spanner he’d been fiddling with. “Fine, I’m coming.”

Gaby scowls at him, and Napoleon smirks at her. “I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced,” he says, stepping forwards and offering his hand. Illya rolls his eyes at the charm suddenly oozing off him. “Napoleon Solo.”

Gaby crosses her arms. “Get out of my workshop,” she just says, and Illya can’t help but laugh at Napoleon’s defeated look.

“Get out before she throws something at you, Cowboy,” he says, smirking. He slips into German as he turns to her. “Come find me when you’re finished,” he says to her. “I’ll be in my room, if we’re not going over strategy yet again.”

Gaby rolls her eyes. “Get out of here before Oleg comes looking,” she tells him, replying in German. “And later we are going to have a talk about _him_.” Illya must not school his face into impassivity quickly enough, because she scowls. “I thought you hated him?”

Illya glances back at Napoleon, who is still lounging against the doorway. He smiles quickly when he sees Illya look at him, and taps his watch. “Can’t keep the press waiting, Peril.”

Illya rolls his eyes. “They are press. They can wait as long as we want. If they leave, I don’t care.” Napoleon smirks at that, and Illya can’t help but smile back.

Gaby is giving him a shrewd look when he looks back at her, and just waves him away, looking thoughtful. Illya tries not to be worried about that as he and Napoleon head back towards the hotel.

“She’s your mechanic, then?” Napoleon asks, cutting through Illya’s thoughts. “She seems like a bit of a spitfire.”

“Gaby? I wouldn’t get on wrong side of her, Cowboy,” Illya says. “She has mean right hook.”

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind, Peril.” He glances over at him. “You two seem close.”

Illya shrugs. “Known her for years, now,” he tells him. “Before…all of this.” He shoots a glare at Napoleon. “Annoy her and I will know.”

Napoleon holds up his hands. “No worries, Peril, I wouldn’t dare think of stealing her from you.” Illya frowns, not quite understanding what Napoleon is saying, so doesn’t say anything. There’s a strange look that flits over Napoleon’s face when he doesn’t reply, but it’s come and gone in a few seconds.

“Ready for more?” Napoleon asks him as they reach the hotel, pausing just before the room that has been set apart for conferences and interviews for the day. Illya shrugs. There’s an itch beneath his skin, but as he tests it, briefly he realises with a small jolt of surprise that it’s quietened even more. He glances at Napoleon, and doesn’t let his thoughts go further than that.

“Ready enough,” he says quietly, and pushes open the doors to the chatter of reporters and the flash of cameras.

0-o-0-o-0

“What was that?”

Illya gives her a look as Gaby comes into his room, looking up from the news article on his phone that he’d been reading on the statistics of the Tour so far. “What was what?” he asks.

Gaby doesn’t buy it. She sits down on his bed, and Illya scowls at her until she sighs, toes off her shoes and wipes the grease on her hands off on her shirt before leaning back against the headboard. “That,” she says. “Solo. I thought you hated him?”

Illya can feel his heartbeat jump slightly at Napoleon’s name, and though he’s sure that it doesn’t show on his face, Gaby’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “He’s not as bad as I first thought,” Illya says defensively. “He’s been better since the beginning of the Tour.”

Gaby hums. “He’s still an arrogant bastard,” she points out. “Is this about the crash? You didn’t cause it, there’s no reason to feel guilty over him getting hurt.”

Illya gives her a look. “I know I didn’t cause it, chop shop girl,” he replies. “I was behind him on road. If anything, he made me crash.”

“You’re deflecting,” Gaby points out. She reaches into Illya’s bag and pulls out an energy bar, unwrapping it and taking a bite. “I don’t understand why you don’t like these, by the way. They’re chocolate flavoured, and you will eat absolutely anything anyway.”

“Exactly,” Illya says. “Chocolate flavoured. It’s not right. They should just put chocolate in them and leave it at that. Besides, you eat them every day for weeks and you will hate them as much as I do.” Despite that, he reaches into the bag and pulls one out. Any time they aren’t cycling, they are meant to be eating. It’s almost ridiculous how much they have to eat. “Don’t get crumbs on my bed,” he says. “I have to sleep here tonight.”

“Really?” Gaby asks. “I had no idea.” She quickly cracks, a grin on her face as she takes another bite of the energy bar. “So, back to the point. Solo?”

Illya groans. “Not everyone in the Tour are meant to be rivals?” he tries. When Gaby just gives him a look, he shakes his head, lying back on the bed. “He’s…he’s not what he was,” he tries to explain. “He’s different when he’s not in front of cameras.”

Gaby hums, and then falls quiet. Illya looks over at her to see a scheming look on his face, and his heart jumps up in his throat again as he waits for her to say whatever she’s thinking. “Right,” she says eventually. “Is this…don’t kill me for asking this, but is this…Illya, do you like him? Like that, I mean?”

Illya knows that he doesn’t have his face controlled, knows that his expression is letting Gaby know just how terrified he is of that question. “Don’t ask me that,” he gets out, his voice a croak. “Please don’t ask me that.”

Gaby’s expression softens. “Okay, fine,” she says. “If that is the case, though, just remember the reputation he has. Be careful, Illya. He wouldn’t deserve you.”

Illya rolls his eyes, trying to keep his heart rate down. “I mean it,” Gaby says fiercely. “If he tries anything, I will be more than happy to take him out. Be careful, Illya. I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t know him,” Illya feels compelled to point out.

“And you do?” Gaby counters. “You’ve never really talked to him before this Tour, and it’s only been a week. You can’t know him that well. You can’t trust him enough to know he won’t hurt you.”

Illya doesn’t know what to say to that. Rationally, he knows Gaby is right. He’s only known Napoleon for a week, less if he’s counting from when they first had a proper conversation. But then there’s another part of him that is remembering the offer of music on a balcony at night, the way that his past fell from his tongue and he didn’t even mind. He thinks Napoleon is so different from what is seen on the cameras and in the news, so much more of a person when he’s on his own, on a balcony at night or in the middle of a stage where nothing matters except the ride.

“It’s nothing,” he says eventually, and he doesn’t want to think about why saying those words makes his stomach sink slightly. “We’re just getting on better now. That crash helped, I think, made us have to work together, but it’s nothing.”

Gaby doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t push it. Illya is grateful for a brief moment, before that part of him tangles with the small voice, getting steadily louder the longer that the Tour goes on and the more that Napoleon gets into his head, that says he should just tell her everything.

He’s spared from that when his phone buzzes. “It’s Oleg,” he says. “Wants to do another briefing before tomorrow.” He sighs, and hauls himself off the bed, wincing as the road rash rubs against the sheets. “Don’t eat all the energy bars or the nutritionist will be annoyed with me again.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just sneak some more out of her bag when she’s not looking,” Gaby says with a grin. She pauses as Illya heads for the door. “Just remember what I said,” she says. “You don’t know him well enough to trust him. And if he does piss you off, just let me know. I have plenty of pointy tools and am willing to help you hide the body.”

The look Illya gives her is deeply unimpressed. “Go fix bikes, chop shop girl,” he remarks as he heads out of the room. “Stop interfering. There’s nothing going on.”

He tries to convince himself of that as he heads through the hotel to the team bus parked outside, tries to tell himself that there isn’t anything, but he’s not a good liar, even to himself.

0-o-0-o-0

“How do you stand it?”

Napoleon glances over as Illya pulls up beside him. “Stand what?” he asks, his voice low. They’re already on the road for the stage today, but everyone is conserving their energy for the hour or so before they hit the climb, and it’s easy enough to talk to the neighbouring cyclist.

Illya is silent for a moment as they lean into a corner, and then shrugs slightly, as best as he can when on a bike. “The press,” he says. “All those interviews yesterday. You seem to love it.”

Napoleon almost laughs at that. “Peril, I probably hate it as much as you do,” he says. Illya glances at him, arching a brow, and now Napoleon does huff a brief laugh. “Honestly, nobody likes doing press.”

“Then why do you find it so…easy?” Illya asks.

Napoleon thinks about it for a moment, and he can feel his smile dimming slightly. “I learnt as a kid that charm is very useful for getting people to like you, and treat you somewhat better. It’s no different with the press. You smile, you make jokes, you flirt with them, and they think they have a relationship with you. That makes them slightly more inclined to treat you like a human being and not just a potential story.” He glances at Illya. “You give them a character, Peril, that’s all it is. Someone they can relate to, someone they think they understand. It’s not real.”

“So, what is real, Cowboy?” Illya asks, his voice quiet.

The question leaves Napoleon speechless, for a brief moment. He doesn’t know how to answer that, even to himself. Springsteen on a balcony at night is real, he thinks. This curling flicker in his chest, the one that unfurls whenever he sees Illya away from their teams, he’s almost certain that’s real. But he doesn’t know how to articulate that, let alone in the middle of a stage, their riders all around them. He knows their domestiques have noticed the changes between them, the way they’ll chat to each other for most of the early parts of each stage when they can, swapping cycling stories and musing on the other riders.

Illya is still watching him out of the corner of his eye, so Napoleon shrugs. “It’s not like I’m playing an act most of the time, that would be exhausting,” he replies. “What isn’t in front of the press, what’s not for Sanders’ benefit or for some official?” He shrugs, best as he can whilst cycling. “That’s real. At least, I think it is. You’re delving dangerously close to me expounding at length on identity and what makes a self.”

Illya rolls his eyes. “I will stay away from that,” he says with a grin curling the corner of his lips. “Do not need another lecture.” He shakes his head. “Still don’t know how you do it. I don’t think I could keep that going in front of press.”

“Not sure it would work for you, Peril,” Napoleon replies. “Not sure you could charm an old grandmother, let alone those sharks masquerading as journalists.”

Illya huffs. “Don’t think that will work for me, Cowboy,” he admits, and the reluctance in his voice of even admitting what everyone already knows makes a smile play on Napoleon’s lips.

“I’ve had plenty of practice at charming people, Peril,” Napoleon says. “Don’t worry about it. Being surly and hating every moment of it also works well enough, in your case. I think quite a few people find it endearing, in an odd way. And this sort of charm takes a while to learn properly.”

Illya huffs again. “How did you learn?” he asks.

For a brief moment, Napoleon’s breath stutters in his throat. He remembers quite clearly how he learned to read people, to play with words just right to get away with whatever he needed to. It had been as important a skill to survive as a child as the lockpicking skills he picked up before he was thirteen. He remembers managing at first to persuade a teacher that the bruises were from falling off a bike, when he learnt that the extra tilt to his smile and a certain word or two could convince the lunchladies to slip him a little extra food. Later, when he was older, he refined the skills for more important matters, learned how to steal what would make money but not attract the attention of the cops, how to hustle and charm his way into places he should never be allowed into. It was what he had needed to survive, and he’s never quite forgotten how it works.

Illya is still looking at him, and Napoleon clears his throat. “You aren’t the only one with a complicated childhood, Peril,” he says, and his attempt at lightness falls completely flat. Illya has to turn his attention back to the road, but Napoleon knows he is still listening. For some reason, there are more words on the tip of his tongue, begging to be heard.

He pushes them down, but only just. “I’d tell you all about my horrible upbringing and precisely how I ended up here, but we are in the middle of a race,” he says instead. “Maybe later. If you take the jersey off me.”

At that, Illya does glance over at him for as long as he can take his eyes off the road. “Is that a challenge, Cowboy?”

Napoleon can’t help but grin. “It is if you want it to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I love Gaby. She's exactly the sort of person you need to beat some sense into you. She's right to not trust Napoleon, at this point- she hasn't seen what Illya has seen of Napoleon yet, she only knows what he's like in front of the cameras, and she's fiercely protective of Illya, so she's right to be wary (at the moment). Also, I was tempted to write that bit where Napoleon and Gaby meet from Napoleon's point of view, just to see how surprised he is that his charm doesn't work on her.
> 
> Illya's hatred of chocolate flavoured energy bars comes from my hatred of 'cheese flavoured' products. I'm looking at you, America. It should either have cheese in it, or not be cheesy. You can't have 'cheese flavoured' products that pretend to be cheese, it's just not right. I've had to eat 'cheese flavoured' spread before (it's a long story as to why I _had_ to eat it), and even now I can gag just thinking about it. Nope.
> 
> Also, they really do have to eat that much whilst on the Tour. If they're not cycling or sleeping, they're eating.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up at 4:20am this morning to go compete with horses and am very tired right now (it's evening here in the UK), so forgive the notes for being a little sleep-addled.
> 
> In other news, because I am incapable of letting a story go, I've been adding little bits here and there to the as-yet-unpublished parts of this story, so it now stands at 88k! I'm working on the arts professor AU sequel, which is standing at 50k and god, nowhere _near_ finished, and also working on a third story for that AU because I accidentally fell deep into a plot bunny thing (wow, I feel old saying that) and am now 17k deep, so it's too late to back out now.
> 
> Help, I have no self control when it comes to writing.
> 
> Brief warnings for this chapter- someone (not a main character) uses the words whore and faggot in a derogatory way. It gets dealt with, but not all in this chapter- some of it spills over to the next chapter as well. It's nothing too terrible, and none of the characters are too adversely affected, but please be careful if you feel you need to.

Of course, the stage doesn’t quite run to plan. It never does, Napoleon thinks bitterly as he battles for the finish line. Illya is up ahead of him, at least six seconds ahead of him, and it’s all because of some stupid Italian rider who cut Napoleon off as he was pulling out of the sprint for the finish. Napoleon was lucky he didn’t crash, and as it was, he’s now behind and scrambling to claw back what few seconds he can from Illya’s lead.

He sees Illya punch the air as he crosses the line, another stage win under his belt, and a glance at the clock confirms what he’d been dreading since that fucking Italian idiot had nearly made him fall. Illya has the yellow jersey back.

There’s an unfamiliar ripple of anger stirring beneath Napoleon’s skin as he finally crosses the line and skids to a halt, the crowds of officials and riders and press swarming around them. Illya has already been swamped by half his team, and there’s a curl of something low in Napoleon’s gut that he doesn’t really want to think about when their mechanic appears, and Illya sweeps her up into a hug.

They’re all being pulled away from the finish line, and Napoleon is holding it together surprisingly well, flanked by various team members, when that idiot Italian nearly walks right into them. “Watch it,” Napoleon snaps. “You’ve caused enough issues already.”

The other cyclist stops abruptly. “Oh really?” he asks. “Because the way I remember it, you cut into my line.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “Excuse me?” he asks. “I had a clear line until you swerved across half the damn road. I was behind you, and you were changing your line. That makes it your responsibility to not get in my way.”

The cyclist scowls. “Arrogant American,” he spits at him. “Thinking everyone moves around you. You should watch where you’re riding. You should know that this race doesn’t belong to your type.” He deliberately looks Napoleon up and down, and his lip curls. His next words are so low that Napoleon can only just hear them. “Whore. You don’t belong here.”

Napoleon can feel the air still around him as everyone stops breathing. The anger that had been on a precarious tether suddenly snaps and tumbles deep within him, and there’s a cold rage now spreading through his bones. “What did you just call me?”

One of his teammates grabs his shoulder. “Leave it, Solo,” someone is saying. “Let’s walk away. He’s not worth it.”

Napoleon shrugs off the hand. “No, I want to know what he has to say.” He turns to the other man. “What did you call me? Go on, repeat it for everyone to hear. Let’s have everything out in the open.” He steps forwards, crowding into his space. “Say it again,” he says, his voice a low purr. “Go on. Say it again.”

The Italian’s lip curls again, and he spits at Napoleon’s feet. “Whore,” he says clearly. “Faggot. You can pick either.”

Napoleon steps forwards. He’s honestly not sure what he’s going to do, but there’s something burning underneath his skin, and he hasn’t felt that for a long time. But before he even gets more than a step closer, there’s a solid mass suddenly between him and that fucking Italian cyclist.

Illya presses Napoleon back with one hand, looming over the Italian. “What did you call him.”

“Peril, for fucks sake,” Napoleon spits out. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” There are more people crowding around them now, teammates from his own team, the silver shirts of Mercedes riders, and anyone else who wants to watch the dramatics. Napoleon is sure there is a camera recording all of this.

Illya reaches out, and grips the front of the other man’s shirt, hauling him close. “What did you call him,” he says quietly. “I will not ask again.”

The other cyclist stares him down, his lips twisting in a vicious sneer. “You heard me,” he says.

Napoleon slips past Illya and puts himself between the two of them. “Let go of him, Peril,” he says, his voice low. “Peril. Illya. Let go.”

He grabs Illya’s arm, and realises that he is trembling, fine tremors running through his body. Napoleon curses, and pushes Illya back with a sharp shove to his chest. “Let him go, Illya,” he snaps. “This isn’t your fucking problem. You have no right to step in here like this involves you.”

There are even more people crowding around them now, but Napoleon can see the strange blankness on Illya’s face and it makes him worried. He shoves at Illya again, pressing the heel of his hand into Illya’s chest for a long few seconds to feel the shivers extending through his body. “Step back.”

“Listen to the whore,” the Italian sneers, and Napoleon can see the words hit Illya and run through him, leaving tremors in their wake. Napoleon rounds on him.

“You don’t get to speak,” he snaps. “You don’t get a fucking word in this situation. You called me a whore and a faggot, so you do not get to speak unless it is grovelling at my feet for forgiveness. Shut up and step back, before somebody makes you.”

“Is that a threat?” the Italian asks. He tries to stare Napoleon down, but Napoleon has been in this game a long time, and the other cyclist has no hope of being able to intimidate him in any way. Napoleon smiles, slowly, and can see the other man flinch back in his eyes.

“It’s a promise,” he says. “Because you’re outnumbered here. I have my team, and Illya has his, and we have the whole weight of the Tour on our side, because you called me a whore and a faggot, and everybody heard.” He can feel the heat of Illya behind him, barely being held at bay by Napoleon’s hand still on his chest. He’s still trembling, slightly, fine tremors running through his body, his hands just shaking where they’re still grasping the other cyclist’s shirt.

Napoleon slowly reaches out and puts his hand over Illya’s, tugging at them slightly. “Let go, Peril,” he says, not looking away from the Italian. “This isn’t your fight.” It’s all he can do to not turn around to face Illya, to bodily push him away and out of this, but he manages to stare down the Italian until Illya reluctantly lets go.

There’s a flurry of movement in the corner of his eye, and Napoleon turns to see the Mercedes mechanic fighting through the crowds of people all a head taller than her. He’s quietly impressed at how forceful she must be with her elbows, given how more than one cyclist is doubled over, clutching their stomach, in her wake.

“You,” she spits at him when she gets to them. “What have you done now?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Napoleon says, completely honest for once. She glares at him, but then turns to Illya. The gentleness with which she takes Illya’s hands is somewhat surprising, given the general disdain he can feel oozing off her. She starts speaking quietly in German, and after a few moments Illya answers back in a low voice.

A hand falls on Napoleon’s shoulder, and he glances over his shoulder to see his teammates behind him, all staring down the Italian. “Jog on, mate,” one of them says. “You can just fuck right off, now. You’ve done enough damage.”

Officials finally make it over to them, pushing through the crowds, and they’re closely followed by Oleg and Sanders. Napoleon turns to Illya, but Oleg is already pulling him away. A second later, the team are hustling Napoleon in the other direction, flanking him as they head past the Italian’s team.

“Despite all those dramatics, you still all need to cool down,” Sanders snaps at them. “Solo, get your ass onto that bike and cool down properly. Don’t you dare start bitching at me about losing the jersey.”

“It wasn’t my fucking fault,” Napoleon snaps back, but he gets on the stationary bike and starts pedalling. “He came right out of my blindspot and cut me off. He had no right to do that!”

“I saw it,” one of the other teammates says. “He did completely cut Solo off. I thought it was impressive you stayed on your bike, honestly, and managed to keep the loss to Kuryakin down to only ten seconds. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Regardless, I don’t need your attitude, Solo,” Sanders snaps. “And you need to get over whatever crap he said to you just now. It can’t have been that bad.”

“Actually-” someone else starts saying, but Sanders cuts them off.

“You get paid to ride in this team, not to turn every single moment into some amateur dramatics,” he tells Napoleon. “We indulge your little histrionics with the press because you’re good, but you’re not irreplaceable, Solo. So stop fucking about to get more attention from the press, and actually try to win this damn thing.”

Napoleon doesn’t make the conscious decision to stop pedalling, his body seems to decide that for him. He sits up on the bike and stares at Sanders. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Because it sounds like you’re insinuating I lost the jersey today as a publicity stunt?” Sanders opens his mouth, and Napoleon cuts him off. “No, I think you were pretty clear about that. Well fuck you, Sanders, for thinking my fucking reputation with the press means more to me than this whole race and that damn jersey. Fuck you for even thinking I’d hand the jersey off to someone else because it gets me thirty more seconds in the news.”

“You know damn well that wasn’t what I meant,” Sanders says, but he’s looking uncomfortable. The other members of the team have all stopped pedalling now, and are looking worried.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you mean I let that other cyclist call me a whore and a faggot for a publicity stunt?” Napoleon asks, a long-forgotten anger that he hasn’t felt for years beginning to rise up and wrap around his throat as he spits those words out. “I know you don’t think much of me, Sanders, but this is low, even for you.”

He gets off the bike and stands up, grabbing a jacket. “Solo,” Sanders snaps, and Napoleon can feel the anger just beginning to course through him, just enough for him to turn away from Sanders and walk away without another word.

He walks until he’s clear of the crowds and the reporters and just everybody who could be watching, and then he lets himself find an empty bench and sink down onto it. For a moment it is quiet, and he runs his hands through his hair as the anger curls around his throat, tugging insistently at it until he can’t quite keep his breathing together.

There’s the sound of footsteps on the cobbles, and Napoleon looks up. “Oh, for fucks sake,” he mutters. “Of course, it would be you.”

Illya hesitates, a few feet from the bench. “They’re reviewing it,” he says. “The video of it. Chances are he’ll be kicked out of the Tour.”

Napoleon laughs bitterly. “For which part?” he asks. “Cutting me off and nearly making me crash, or insulting me afterwards?”

Illya frowns. “Cowboy,” he says hesitantly, and Napoleon sees his hands curl into fists at his side. He sways forwards but doesn’t take a step, an aborted movement forwards. “Are you…what’s wrong?”

Napoleon’s lips curl in a grimace. “Don’t act like you care all that much, Peril,” he says. “It was just my trainer suggesting I did all of this for a fucking publicity stunt.”

He realises that wasn’t the best thing to say when Illya breathes in sharply, and there’s a sudden expression crossing his face that, if Napoleon were in a more rational mind, would make him walk away to avoid becoming part of the body count. As it is, though, that anger curling around his throat just digs in a little deeper.

“No, you don’t get to look like that,” he snaps at Illya. “Where do you think you get the right, trying to fight my battles for me?”

Illya, very briefly, almost looks guilty. “He said-”

“I don’t give a fuck what he said,” Napoleon says abruptly. “He said it to me, not to you. It was nothing to do with you, and you shouldn’t have gotten involved. I can fight my own fucking battles, okay? Especially against someone as stupid as he was, saying that in front of everyone.”

Illya shakes his head. “It became my problem, Cowboy, the moment he said those words,” he says, his voice sharp. “That made it my problem. Nobody gets to say those words to someone else.”

“Jesus, Peril, haven’t you worked out that I can handle myself?” Napoleon says roughly, just barely wrestling his voice back from a shout. He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, it’s that treacherous anger curling around his throat that does it. “Who the hell do you think you are, trying to muscle your way in because, I don’t know, you think I can’t defend myself against some idiots with words?”

A muscle clenches in Illya’s jaw. “Nobody gets to use those words to insult someone,” he repeats, his voice low and surprisingly deadly. “I don’t care if you think I am in the way, or you hate me for it. He doesn’t get to use those words.”

“Oh, come off it, Peril,” Napoleon says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not this huge fucking deal you’re making it into. He called me a whore and a faggot, he didn’t try to stab me in the back.”

He’s surprised to see Illya flinch at those words. “Peril,” he says, trying to get some words through that thick wall that seems to have gone up around Illya. “Do you honestly think that’s the first time I’ve heard those words?”

Illya’s gaze snaps to him, and Napoleon holds back a sigh. “Peril,” he says. “Illya. I am an openly bisexual man in a very masculine, mildly misogynistic and sometimes even homophobic area of sport. It is definitely not the first time someone has called me a whore, or a faggot. I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t handle it.”

Illya looks away from him, and for a brief second Napoleon thinks he is going to turn and walk away without another word. He sways in place, but his feet don’t move. Napoleon studies him, seeing the twitch of the muscle in his jaw, the slight tremble in his hands where they’re clenched into fists at his sides.

“They shouldn’t call you that,” Illya grinds out eventually. “He shouldn’t have said it.”

Napoleon sighs, and resists burying his head in his hands. “Yes, we’ve established that several repetitions ago,” he points out. “But he said it, didn’t he? And it is still not your problem.”

Illya glares at him. “It is my problem, Cowboy, when he says things like that.”

“Says what?” Napoleon asks. “Whore? Faggot?” He doesn’t miss how Illya flinches as he says each word, the tremors that run through his body. “I’m starting to sound like a broken fucking record, Peril, but not liking those words does not, in fact, make someone saying them to me your problem. I can defend myself. In fact, I’ve been doing just fine all these years before the two of us ever met.”

Illya just shakes his head and crosses his arm, and Napoleon groans. “You are so fucking stubborn, Peril, it’s unbelievable,” he mutters, giving into the urge to bury his head in his hands. “Yes, we’ve been over the fact that you think this is somehow your problem, and we’ve been over the fact that this whole thing has nothing whatsoever to do with you, so if you could just get over yourself and leave me alone, that would be much appreciated.”

Illya stares at him, and Napoleon meets his stare with his own. “I don’t owe you anything, Peril, and I definitely don’t owe you whatever catharsis you think you’re getting by trying to defend me, instead of confronting your own damn problems. So leave me alone, and go back to your own team. Don’t you have a yellow jersey to accept?”

Napoleon is a little surprised that it’s those last few words that make Illya drop his gaze and look away, but he doesn’t let any of it show. There’s a few seconds of stillness, as if Illya is trying to find something to say, but he never does. Napoleon watches as he walks away, and then lets himself slump back on the bench and squeeze his eyes shut, just for a brief moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all wonderful people for your comments, it really does make my day seeing your responses to my wacky idea for an AU that got totally out of hand.
> 
> For all that Illya and Napoleon have been opening up to each other and slowly getting to know each other, they're definitely not all the way there yet, as this chapter shows.
> 
> I'm not actually sure whether or not it was the Italian's fault for cutting Napoleon off, in the official Tour rules. Jostling someone or riding right into their line is definitely against the rules, especially when racing for the line, but these things aren't always clear cut. Also, Sanders really is a terrible person.
> 
> Napoleon is right, though. Illya doesn't get to fight his battles for him, just because he's upset someone insulted Napoleon (or more accurately, that someone else used those insults. Illya would happily insult Napoleon all day long, but not like that).
> 
> I made a point, in this chapter, of Napoleon actually stating that he's bisexual. Far too often in media the character never actually gets to say this- it's always a little ambiguous, like they mention an ex-girlfriend in an offhand way, or are shown flirting with both men and women, etc. If people don't know quite what they identify as yet, or don't subscribe to a particular identity, then that is another thing entirely, but the word bisexual should not be erased from media (nor should any other labels, but I notice this problem a lot with bisexuality, seeing as I am bi). Our existence isn't a taboo word. So yeah, I felt that necessary.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The continuation of everything that happened last chapter, and a lot of backstory unfolding. Nothing is described in too much detail, but for specific triggers, please skip ahead to the end notes if you feel you need to.  
> Don't worry, it won't be that bad. Because I don't really have any self control and because of all of your wonderful comments I've tweaked a couple of things that happen in this chapter, but this isn't the big plot twist or even a massive plot point. That comes later. This is literally one large balcony scene, so if you like those, you should be happy.
> 
> From the looks of it, there will be three more chapters until the big plot twist, including this one. So enjoy it whilst you can.

Napoleon glances up from his book at the sound of approaching footsteps. “For the love of God,” he mutters to himself as he watches Illya round the corner. It’s too late to disappear and pretend like today didn’t happen, so he meets Illya’s gaze as he spots him. “Please don’t tell me you’re here to fight more of my battles for me,” he says. “Or I will punch you.”

Illya scowls at him. “Everyone was just standing there,” he mutters. “People should have said something.” He folds his arms, but makes no move to walk away and go somewhere else. Napoleon isn’t sure whether he’s annoyed about that, or secretly pleased. The anger that was riding high on adrenaline has calmed down a lot since the stage finish, barely a simmer underneath his skin, but he still can’t take Illya trying to fight his battles for him.

“People were saying something,” Napoleon points out. “I was saying something. Namely fuck off, if I remember correctly.” He frowns, studying Illya. “Why is this so important to you?” he asks. “Why are you so insistent on defending my honour?”

Illya shifts, glancing away from him, and Napoleon suddenly realises that he almost looks scared. “I have good reasons to not want people to use those words as insults,” he gets out, his throat working but his voice steady. He meets Napoleon’s gaze. “I don’t want to say more than that. Trust me enough for that, Cowboy?”

Napoleon stares at him. That was not what he had expected.

It’s the apprehension in Illya’s face, the way Napoleon can’t help but feel a similar worry, that whatever is between them will get wrecked if he pushes it, if they turn this into more than what it is, that makes him nod. “I think I can just about stretch that far, Peril,” he replies. “I assume you heard what happened in the end?” At Illya’s nod, he shakes his head. “They had to call me in for a whole debrief of the situation before they announced it, along with as much of an apology as I’m ever going to get.”

“From the…that Italian?” Illya asks with a frown. “I thought he has left. His team look very scared that your team are going to go after him. They moved their bus so they are parked far away from yours.”

At that, Napoleon has to stifle a snort of laughter. His team had actually discussed whether they could get away with crashing the entirety of that team on the road tomorrow, but they eventually decided it would be more trouble than it’s worth. “From the officials,” he clarifies when Illya just arches a brow. “And from that team leader. The rider himself wasn’t there. I think they thought if I was in the same room as him I would punch him out or something.”

Illya snorts at that, and Napoleon can feel the curl of his lips becoming a little more genuine with every second on this balcony. “It would be very tempting,” Illya mutters, the beginnings of a grin curling his lips. “Gaby wanted me to get my team to tip his team off road tomorrow.”

“My team are all up for that,” Napoleon remarks. “Join forces, we could probably make the crash look realistic enough to fool the officials. Pity that idiot himself won’t be in the _peloton_ tomorrow, though if he was I’m not sure he’d manage to make it to the end.”

They fall silent for a moment, Illya glancing away from Napoleon and staring out across the balcony. Napoleon follows his gaze, but there’s nothing to see beyond the vague shadows of the town. That urge to push, to satisfy his curiosity, rises up and curls around his throat again, forcing words onto his lips.

“So, Peril, have you sorted out your problems from earlier?” Napoleon asks lightly, leaning back in his chair and watching Illya’s expression. Illya’s jaw clenches, and he looks away from Napoleon, out across the town. Napoleon studies the profile of his face, the shadows and planes just visible in the dusk, and tries to ignore the swooping sensation in his stomach as he waits for an answer.

“I thought you said you’d trust me,” Illya points out. Napoleon rolls his eyes, exasperated at Illya’s stubbornness, and a hint of a smile flickers across Illya’s face. “Like I told you, over and over again, he doesn’t get to use those words to insult you.”

“What, whore?” Napoleon asks, to see if Illya will flinch at the word again. He does, but it’s barely noticeable, and this time there’s a small curl to his lips, as if he knows that Napoleon is baiting him. “You do know you can’t control who says those words, Peril?” he asks. “They’re just words, anyway. They only mean what you let them mean.”

Illya’s hands tremble, and he crosses his arms quickly. Napoleon watches as he opens his mouth, but he doesn’t quite manage to say anything. Napoleon watches, and he waits. He knows he was right in thinking that there was something more to this all.

Illya swallows, and his throat works. “Before,” he says quietly. “When I told you about my childhood…” He sighs, looking away across the town, at the last shreds of sunlight clinging onto the silhouette of the mountains. “When my mother and I were on the streets, we got off them because of that. That…that’s what she did to get us somewhere to live. She became…popular, I suppose, amongst my father’s old friends.”

Napoleon blinks. Somehow, in all of this, he hadn’t been expecting that. “Peril,” he says softly, but Illya shakes his head.

“I hated her for it,” he says, still staring out at the mountains. “For so long. I hated her for marrying my father because of what he did, I hated her for not doing something impossible to stop it happening. I hated her because it was easier than hating everything else.” He draws in a breath and it shudders in his throat.

“She’s your mother,” Napoleon says quietly. “And she did everything to keep you safe, because she loved you. That has to be worth something.” He has the barest memories of his own mother, and they’re tainted and marred by everything he learnt once she was gone. He thinks, sometimes, that she was the most resourceful person he’s ever known, being able to hide everything for that long.

Illya sighs, and then shrugs half-heartedly. “I know,” he says softly. “But I was child. I couldn’t think that rationally. I grew up, of course, and I worked it out, but I hated her for so long, and that’s not something I can take back.”

“She knows that you love her, though,” Napoleon says, but even as he’s saying it he has no idea if it’s true. It’s not as if he has any experience in the area.

Even so, there’s a half-formed smile curling Illya’s lips. “She came to every cycling race I ever entered,” he tells Napoleon, still looking out at the last remnants of the sun. “She died three weeks after I became national champion for first time.”

Napoleon doesn’t consciously make the decision to get up, but he does, and crosses the short space between him and Illya. “I’m sorry, Peril,” he says. Illya tears his gaze away from the view to look at him. His eyes are damp, but there’s no tremble in his hands as he lets them fall down by his side.

“Not your fault, Cowboy,” he says, a sad smile on his lips. “Nothing to do with you, actually.” Napoleon huffs a surprised laugh at that, and Illya’s smile grows briefly. “She would have seen through you in a second,” he tells him. “None of your tricks would have worked.”

“I have tricks?” Napoleon asks, a smile of his own flashing across his face. Illya rolls his eyes.

“You know you have tricks, Cowboy,” he says. “Don’t try and lie to yourself.”

“Oh, but they are the best,” Napoleon replies, fighting a grin. He pauses. “Can I ask you something? I’m curious.”

Illya rolls his eyes, but seems to relax enough to lean against the balcony rails. He looks out across the valley, still just visible in the dusk light. “You’re always curious, Cowboy,” he says. “You’re incorrigible.”

“That is not how you pronounce incorrigible, but yes, I am,” Napoleon says, a grin curling his lips. “Another terrible American trait.” Illya scoffs, but Napoleon can see the barest smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Anyway, I am curious. Where did you come from, and why haven’t you been making my life hell for years now?” Illya gives him a look, but Napoleon isn’t deterred.

“I went back through Tour archives when you took the jersey at the beginning,” he continues. “If there’s one thing I’m good at besides cycling, it’s research. You’ve pretty much always been in the top twenty every Tour, you’ve been Weber’s final _domestique_ on the vast majority of stages, your statistics are solid. Outside of the Tour you have accolades of your own. For Christ’s sake, you are the Russian champion. And yet you’ve never gone for the jersey before. Why?”

Illya is silent for a long moment. “Never been quite good enough before,” he says, and they both know that it’s a deflection and not true.

“You underestimate your own abilities a little bit, there,” Napoleon points out. “We’ve all seen that crash with Weber three years ago, so you’ve had the power there for years. Why wait until now to pursue this?” That spark of curiosity is slowly burning in his chest again, making him lean forwards and study Illya’s expression. “Why stay a _domestique_ for so long?”

Illya seems to pause, to actually think about the answer. He looks away from Napoleon, out across the town, and Napoleon can just about make out his profile in the dusk. He looks weary.

“I owe Oleg,” Illya says eventually, his voice quiet. “I owe him all of this.” He pauses, and when he next speaks his voice is steady, a quiet strength seeping through. “Like I said, I pulled myself up out of the gutter to get here,” he says. “He offered me a hand. Without him, I don’t know if I would be here right now.”

Napoleon leans back against the balcony, mulling those words over. “I can understand that, I guess,” he says eventually. “That debt is impossible to really pay off, when you basically owe someone your life, your reason for anything good you have in your life now. It’s only compounded for every moment longer that you’re here, of course.” He huffs a bitter laugh. “The trick is to realise who helped you out of kindness, to whom you don’t owe anything because they don’t expect it, and who helped you to gain something themselves.” He laughs again, bitterly. “Those people, you drop in the dust as soon as you can, because they damn well don’t deserve anything from you.”

Illya stares at him. “Somehow, I get sense you’re not talking about me anymore, Cowboy,” he says.

Napoleon shrugs. “Oh, like I said, I had a horrible childhood,” he reminds Illya. “I’m a product of abandonment and the US foster system. Not the nice part of the foster system, either, but the part you had to try and survive. I was offered a helping hand, and I took the inch given to me and made it into a mile. Somehow got all the way here.”

Illya looks curious, and Napoleon waves one hand. “It’s a terribly tragic story of father never being around, mother committed when I was seven, and being bounced from one abusive foster home to another. I could regale you with all the things I learnt that a child shouldn’t have to learn during those years, how many times I nearly went off the deep end, etcetera, etcetera. It would make for a fairly boring sob story, though.”

Illya turns so he’s facing Napoleon, leaning back against the balcony railing. “How did you get out?” he asks, and his voice is soft but not pitying. It’s only because of that, that Napoleon actually considers the question.

“Luck,” he says eventually. “I pickpocketed the wrong person, or the right person, depending on how you look at it. One of those rich people who sees a kid and takes pity on the poor orphan destitute brat, to make themselves feel good. I wasn’t above using that, though, and through them I ended up in an international school in France, and then I got a scholarship to a university in Paris to study Art History.” He shrugs. “From there, I didn’t really look back.”

“Where does cycling fit into all of that?” Illya asks. “How did you end up here?”

“Turns out a bike is a great way to evade the cops,” Napoleon says with a shrug. Illya arches a brow, and he huffs a brief laugh. “No, honestly it came in handy a couple of times. I stole a bike when I was nine, and used it to escape for a couple hours when I needed to. When it got too much, even for me.” His laugh trails off too quickly, and he’s left staring out at the dusk.

Napoleon can still remember racing out of the door and grabbing his bike where he’d hidden it in the hedge, cheek smarting from a slap and ears ringing from the shouts. He can still remember just cycling as fast as he could in any direction that was away from the house, only going back when it was getting dark and he was hungry enough to risk the shouting that would come with his return. That little bike, rusted gears and squeaking wheels, had been his salvation long after he’d stopped believing in anything as hopeful as that.

Other memories hover nearby, ones that he tries not to think about too hard. None of them are terrible on their own, but together even a thousand papercuts could bleed a man dry. “I have spent a long time growing up,” Napoleon says quietly, drumming his fingers on the balcony rail. “And a long time learning how to defend myself. People have called me a whore and a faggot and a whole host of other things, many times, and I learnt how to deal with it.” He glances over at Illya, at his profile in the dusk. “So maybe you can understand why I was so angry with you, earlier.”

Illya dips his head in something that isn’t quite a nod, but is close enough. “I can, if you can understand why I hate those words,” he replies. He pauses. “I could have reacted better.”

“Understatement of the century, Peril,” Napoleon points out. “But yeah, I understand.”

Illya rubs his hand over his face. “Do you ever speak to anyone from then?” he asks abruptly. “From before?”

“A couple, yes,” Napoleon says. “I still know a couple people who were in the same homes as me, at one point or another. They’re all back in the US.” He huffs a bitter laugh. “You go through shit like that with someone else and you tend to either hate each other or become pretty close.”

Illya just nods like he understands, and Napoleon supposes that, for all he knows, he might. “I know,” Illya says quietly. He pauses, and the words he speaks next seem to be pulled from his lips without his permission. “When my father was arrested,” he begins, and then swallows heavily. “Nobody talked to us. There were kids I had played with who were not allowed to see me again. I don’t know anyone from then, anymore.”

“Sometimes a blank slate is good,” Napoleon muses. “A new start. Sometimes it’s better to not have the past as a ball and chain around your leg that you have to drag everywhere.” Illya gives him a look, and Napoleon’s lips quirk in a brief smile. “I know, that was an over-elaborate metaphor. But my point still stands. A blank slate can be a good thing.”

“How many of those can you have?” Illya murmurs quietly. He doesn’t look away from Napoleon, but his expression is weary. Napoleon suddenly finds himself with an urge to wipe that look from Illya’s face, replace it with that tilted curve to his lips when he thinks Napoleon is being an idiot. Napoleon has become surprisingly familiar with that look over the days of the Tour.

“Up to you, Peril,” he says eventually. “But I learnt eventually that there’s nothing really stopping you from walking away. If you wanted to, you could drop all of this,” and he waves a hand to encompass everything they’re trying to achieve here that’s impossible to put into words, “and walk away tomorrow. Nothing is actually stopping you beyond your own mind.”

Illya scoffs. “Spoken like a true American,” he says, and there’s a bite back in his voice. “You can’t just walk away from anything when it becomes hard or boring or not what you want. Some things you have responsibility to see through, no matter cost to yourself.”

“Sometimes, to stay is worse,” Napoleon says, his voice suddenly quiet without him quite meaning it to be. “Sometimes, staying would kill you, in the end. You can care about someone as much as you want, but in the end, if you don’t do what is right for you, it’s all going to go to hell anyway.”

The look Illya gives him is unreadable. “Cowboy?” he just asks quietly. Somehow, it’s exactly the right thing for him to say.

Napoleon huffs a laugh, but it trails off into silence. He sighs, looking away from Illya and out across the town. There are Tour de France banners everywhere, and he can just about see the finish line from today in the dusk. The very last remnants of sunlight are slowly fading behind the mountains, but it looks like it’s going to be a clear night, and there’s just enough moonlight to see the silhouettes of the buildings around them.

“I never really knew her,” he finds himself saying, and he’s surprised to find the words having to push past a lump in his throat. Illya only glances at him, saying nothing, but Napoleon feels he has to try and continue anyway.

“My mother,” he clarifies. “She was probably one of the strongest people I’ve ever known, but…it wasn’t in a good way.” He draws in a breath, feeling the air over his lips. “I only ever really knew her in the abstract.”

Illya looks at him again, an arched brow, and Napoleon shrugs. “I was a kid, and she was committed when I was seven,” he says. “You don’t retain many memories from that young, and whatever I remember of her is undoubtedly skewed and painted over by everything I pieced together after I was put into care. But whoever she really was, I didn’t ever really know her.”

“She was your mother,” Illya says quietly. “Whatever else, she would have loved you.”

Napoleon huffs a bitter laugh, and is surprised to find his eyes stinging slightly. “When her mind wasn’t completely fractured into pieces, maybe,” he offers. “When she wasn’t fixated on her paranoia of the day, perhaps she did. But her mind wasn’t…it wasn’t there, really, and definitely not enough to look after a child. I don’t know how often love factored into it.”

Illya frowns. “Just because she was ill, doesn’t mean she didn’t understand,” he says. “Maybe she just couldn’t…couldn’t say it out loud, or couldn’t make sense of it in her head. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”

Napoleon hums, because to open his mouth and actually say anything feels like too great a risk. It’s a long moment that he spends breathing slowly and stopping his jaw from trembling.

“I went through enough abuse as a kid,” he says eventually, because it’s easier to talk about than half-formed distant memories of a woman he is never really going to understand. “Your typical stuff, getting knocked about by drunk men mostly, with the usual accompaniment of shouting and screaming.” He huffs the barest of laughs. “A bottle once or twice, that was always fun to try and dodge.” He holds up one hand, showing Illya the pale scar that runs across the back of it. “That’s from a plate that got thrown at my head. I was nine.”

Illya reaches out, taking Napoleon’s hand and turning it over so he can see the scar. Napoleon stills, barely breathing as Illya’s thumb traces down the pale line of raised skin. “I’m sorry,” Illya says plainly, looking up at Napoleon.

Napoleon doesn’t want to take his hand back, so he doesn’t. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “But it was a long time ago. Screwed me up, but I got help, got my head more or less screwed on straight.” He shakes his head. “I blamed her for some of it, you know? If only she’d been a better mother, if only she hadn’t had serious medical issues out of her control that meant she didn’t know how to look after herself, let alone a kid. But I know that it wasn’t her fault, that she was ill, that sometimes the cards are just against you.” He huffs a laugh. “Of course, that was before I learnt how to play the game.”

Illya arches a brow, and there isn’t a shred of that cloying pity Napoleon hated as a child on his face. “Don’t give me that look, Peril,” he says, but there isn’t any heat to his voice as he says that. “There’s no way I would be here if I hadn’t learnt how to play people and twist a situation to suit myself as best as I could.” He pauses, and looks out at the view from the balcony.

“I have no idea where I’d be,” he murmurs eventually. “If I wasn’t here. If I hadn’t run.”

Illya shrugs, and Napoleon almost flinches at the movement, he’d fallen so deep into his own head. “Prison, probably,” Illya offers, his voice dry. “Judging by what you’ve told me.”

A bark of laughter jumps from Napoleon’s lips before he can stop it. “You know what, you’re probably right,” he says when he’s gained control back over his voice. “I know enough to know that the life I had back in the States would have become too little too quickly. Chances are I would have done something stupid and ended up in prison, somehow.” He huffs a laugh. “I’d like to think I would have become a successful art thief, though. Someone with class.”

“You are American,” Illya points out in that same dry voice, a hint of a smile curling his lips. “You can’t have class.”

“I’ll have you know that I could have been an excellent international art thief, thank you very much,” Napoleon says, mock affront colouring his voice. “I have plenty of class.”

“You wear lycra most days,” Illya says. “Nobody who wears that much lycra has class.”

Napoleon scoffs at that, but he can’t quite keep the grin from his face. It isn’t until he leaves the balcony, much later, with Illya heading in the opposite direction to his own bed, that he realises there’s something slowly unfurling in his chest. When he pokes at it, he can see the way that Illya’s lips curl in that sly smile of his, the way he leans against the balcony railing, lithe elegance and sharp edges lurking just below the surface.

_Oh,_ he thinks. _I’m screwed._

He supposes it’s not a good thing that he’s always had such terrible impulse control when it comes to beautiful things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings for this chapter: discussion of child abuse, both physical and emotional, though not in great detail, nor do the characters get hugely emotional over it- there is angst, but it happened a long time ago and the characters have mostly moved on. Discussion of mental illness in another character, which resulted in this character not being a great parent. Brief discussion of prostitution as a means to survive/keep social standing and money (Illya's usual backstory from the movie). Use of words whore and faggot as in last chapter, not used in a derisive way by the characters but discussed.  
>  Look after yourself, throw me a comment if you are worried about anything in particular and I can explain more in the comments._
> 
> So yeah, Napoleon's backstory does depart fairly significantly from the movie, because trying to get from international art thief to cyclist was pretty much impossible. It's why he is so independent, why he isn't as close to his team as Illya appears to be, and why he's quite comfortable with people disliking him for who he is- he has learnt not to care about people who don't care about him. Which is why he is so intrigued by Illya, in a way.
> 
> Also, THEY ARE HOLDING HANDS! We are getting somewhere! And it only took nearly 40k to get there. Will they get any further before the big plot twist hits? (For anyone who has read any of my other works and knows how evil I can be, I think you can guess the answer)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to preface this by saying I have had a bit of wine, so I apologise if the comments do not make as much sense as usual. I'm not drunk, just...lightly tipsy. But I'd promised myself I'd put a new chapter up, so here it is!
> 
> More backstory! Another balcony scene! Yet more conversation and opening up between Napoleon and Illya! Only two chapters, including this one, to go until the big plot twist...
> 
> Please do check the end notes for warnings if you feel you need to- I don't want to say anything that might be a spoiler right here, and there shouldn't be anything too triggering in this chapter, but please take care of yourself, and check if you need to.

Two days later, Illya wakes up to the sound of machine gun fire.

When he comes downstairs, Oleg looks at him for all of one second before grabbing his arm and pulling him aside. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps tugging Illya along until they’re in a quiet corridor and Illya doesn’t have to try and watch every exit at once. He presses his back to the wall and tries to focus on Oleg.

“How bad is it?” Oleg asks, and his voice isn’t unkind as he looks Illya up and down. “Illya, listen to me. How bad is it?”

Illya draws in a breath and pushes it out slowly. In his head, he counts out how many years it has been since he last picked up a rifle, the number of months since he’d put on his uniform for the last time, since he was last under fire, since he was last on patrol. “I’m okay,” he says. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not,” Oleg says. “But you’re close enough.” He studies Illya again, and Illya is once again reminded that his trainer spent longer serving than he did, decades ago. “I’m not going to send you to see the doctor, because I don’t think you’re that bad today, but you’re going to spend this stage sheltered from everyone by the _domestiques_ , and they are going to stick with you until the very end of the stage. Do you feel like you can do interviews afterwards?”

Illya goes to say yes, and then hesitates. “If we’re inside,” he says. “In a room with-”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Oleg says. “I’ll try and keep the crowds to a minimum, but I can’t promise anything. You know how those sharks can get when they sense blood.” He studies Illya again. “You’ll be better when you get on the road.”

Illya nods. There’s a clatter from down the corridor, someone dropping a plate in the kitchen, and he flinches. Even after all these years, his hands still reach for a weapon first.

Oleg sees it happen, but for once, he doesn’t say anything. “Nobody knows enough about your routine to know if you’re unusually quiet today,” he muses. “We can play that to our advantage. It’s a difficult enough climb today, and you’ve just got the jersey back a couple days ago, so we’ll play it as if you’re just concentrating on the ride today. It might come off as a little worried, but it’s better than the alternative.”

Illya nods, and breathes out again. “Come on,” Oleg says, and again his voice isn’t unkind. It’s a strange thing to hear. “You’re going to eat breakfast in the bus, and then I’ll get the rest of the team in and brief them all on the plan for today.”

Illya can feel his breath catch in his throat as soon as he steps outside and the reporters already there start swarming to him. He can’t help but start to scan the slowly growing crowds for threats. It’s too exposed outside, too many vantage points and exits, and if something happens and people panic, which they always do because whilst a person can be smart, people on a whole are generally stupid and follow the crowds like sheep, it would be far too easy for a stampede to start, and then it’s almost impossible to carry out his job when there are civilians being crushed by panicking people running straight into more danger, and he knows he needs to assign men around the courtyard in the centre before the crowds get too large and he needs someone up high in a good vantage point, and then someone else on the other side so that the blind spots are covered, and he needs to find the best position to set up, and he thinks it would be best if he’s by the archway into the courtyard because if someone tries to drive a vehicle in that’s where they’ll enter, but there are too many people between him and the archway, and there are more coming in and he doesn’t know where his men are, and-

A hand falls on his shoulder and he twists, reaching for it before he realises that he’s no longer outside. He’s gripping Oleg’s wrist, standing in the bus, and the world slowly filters back through. Somehow, he’d walked all the way across the courtyard and into their team bus without realising any of it.

“Breathe, Kuryakin,” Oleg says sharply, and Illya realises his breath is coming in short bursts, and his knuckles are white where he’s gripping Oleg’s wrist. He lets go abruptly, and his knees buckle.

Oleg guides him down to sit on one of the sofas, and pushes his head down between his knees. “Breathe,” he says again. “You complete idiot. You should have said it was this bad today.”

“It was the crowds,” Illya mutters in between breaths. “Too many people. Too many exits to cover.” He shakes his head, drawing in another breath. “Seven years,” he says softly. “It’s been seven years.”

“Yes, well these things never work how we want them to,” Oleg says. “And you know the doctors have said it will get worse when under stress like this. It’s never been much of a problem before because you’ve never had the jersey before.” He sounds cross, but his hand is still resting in between Illya’s shoulder blades, running in smooth circles in time with his breathing. Illya thinks this is perhaps the only time that Oleg is ever considerate to him, possibly even kind. It’s the only thing he thinks Oleg really knows how to deal with, when it comes to him.

Oleg doesn’t leave the bus, but he pulls out his phone and taps away at it with one hand as Illya sits there, purposefully slowing down his breath and wrestling back control over the restlessness surging beneath his skin. By the time the rest of the team get to the bus, he’s got it back under control enough that he’s eating breakfast on the sofa, studying a clip of today’s stage from when they used the same climb four years ago.

Vitaly thumps onto the sofa next to him. “That prick Solo was asking after you,” he tells Illya as he steals a piece of his breakfast. “Wanted to know where you were at breakfast.” Illya’s chest constricts for a moment, his breath catching, but Vitaly doesn’t seem to notice. “We told him to fuck off, of course,” he continues. “Though not quite like that. He’d get us kicked off if we looked at him the wrong way, after everything that happened.”

That’s untrue enough for Illya to jolt out of his own head. “That wasn’t his fault,” he tells Vitaly. “It was other cyclist who said everything.”

Vitaly shrugs. “Still, he’s a bit of an oversensitive prick,” he says, and then Oleg is turning on the screen and shutting them all up. It’s enough of a distraction that Illya can ignore the jolt in his chest, the way his mouth opened and words automatically formed to defend Napoleon from someone who barely knows him.

The team murmur slightly at Oleg’s plans for today, but Illya ignores them all and focuses on the feeling of the sofa as he runs his thumb down a seam, the slight stiffness in his cycling gloves as he curls his hand. If he focuses hard enough, he can forget about the sound of machine gun fire echoing in his ears.

The team seem to realise something isn’t quite right, even without knowing any of the facts that Oleg deemed unimportant to tell them, and they flank Illya the whole time. From the moment they step outside the bus, all the way through warm up and dodging the press and finally getting onto the road, they surround him without question, shielding him from spying reporters and the mess that is the Tour starting each day. Illya is grateful for it, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything but try and find that headspace that is normally well within his grasp. It’s elusive today, slipping from his fingers every time there’s a loud noise, or someone brushes past him.

There’s a movement of red and black out of the corner of his eye within the first couple of kilometres of the race, and Illya turns his head to see Napoleon slip through a small gap in the domestiques that had opened up round a corner. “Long time no see, Peril,” he says, a grin flitting across his lips. “Where were you at breakfast?”

Illya stares at him. “We never talk at breakfast,” he feels like he has to point out. “And we spoke on road yesterday.”

“Yes, well yesterday was so long ago,” Napoleon says with a grin. “Feeling ready for today, Peril? Up for the climb?”

Illya takes in a breath, and focuses on the texture of the grip on the handlebars. “Cowboy,” he says quietly. “Just…not today.”

Napoleon edges his bike closer, and Illya pushes down the urge to flinch and reach for a rifle that he knows, he is sure, isn’t there. “What was that?”

Illya shakes his head, and risks taking his eyes off the road long enough to look over at Napoleon. “Not today,” he says. “I just…I can’t do this today.”

Napoleon studies him for a long moment, as long as a moment can last whilst they’re going at speed on the roads. Illya holds his gaze, silently willing him to understand that this isn’t a joke, this isn’t another challenge, this isn’t something to spark Napoleon’s curiosity and make him pester him for as much of the stage as he can.

Napoleon eventually nods. “Okay, Peril,” he says. “But we’ll talk after the stage, okay?”

Illya just nods, and his domestiques close ranks around him once again as Napoleon slips back out of his view and into the _peloton_. He doesn’t talk to him for the rest of the race. He’s too busy trying to forget the sound of machine gun fire as he rides.

0-o-0-o-0

Illya stands in the gardens of the hotel they’re staying in for the night and tilts his head back to look up at the sky. The clouds are thin enough in places that he can just about see the beginning of stars in the twilight, and there’s a slight breeze blowing the smell of the mountains, of the larch trees and the faint hit of snow still on the summits, even in July. He takes a breath, and remembers how different the desert smelled.

There’s the sound of footsteps, and Illya turns to see Napoleon appear on the patio. “Cowboy,” he says quietly. “Good ride today.”

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “You’re just saying that because you still have fifteen seconds over me,” he says. “I don’t know where you find the strength for those insane climbs. I suppose I’m just lucky I can catch up on each descent.”

Illya scoffs. “You’re sitting behind me the entire time,” he points out. “And climbs aren’t that insane. The descents are worse.”

“Just because you don’t like descending as much, doesn’t mean you get to trash it for the rest of us,” Napoleon says, but there’s a light grin on his lips as he says it. “There’s nothing better than speeding down the side of a mountain.”

Illya hums, but he’s distracted suddenly by the feeling of exposure in the gardens, too many exits and potential vantage points, only compounded in the darkness. His next breath shudders in his throat, and he doesn’t really think about it before he’s walking back towards the patio, sliding shut the door that Napoleon had come through and leaning against the wall. There’s still a restless energy thrumming under his skin, and he knows he was stupid, pushing it like that by standing outside for so long, but he can’t help himself sometimes.

Napoleon is watching him, some unreadable expression on his face. “What was that, Peril?” he asks, leaning against the patio railing opposite Illya. “You’ve been on edge all day.”

Illya shakes his head. “You remember I said it was long story?” he asks. “How I got here?” Napoleon nods, and Illya forces the next words to leave his lips. “I joined army when I was sixteen,” he tells him. “Spent nine years serving.”

Napoleon blinks, and Illya knows he hadn’t been expecting him to say that. “How does nobody know about this?” Napoleon asks eventually. “Surely you’d have army sponsorship, or something?”

Illya almost laughs at that. “I am Russian, Cowboy,” he says. “And I was in part of army that we didn’t talk about.” He’ll let Napoleon reach his own conclusions from that, because the part of him that is still very much a soldier, even after all these years, won’t let him say anything more.

Napoleon’s eyes are wide, before he schools his expression into something more neutral. “And today?” he asks, his voice almost cautious.

Illya shrugs. “I don’t know what you Americans call it,” he says. “I think closest translation is combat fatigue, maybe? I left army after nine years because of it. Wasn’t effective anymore.”

“We call it PTSD,” Napoleon says, his voice soft. “If that’s what I think you’re describing. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yeah, combat fatigue sounds like it is something akin to PTSD.” He huffs a brief laugh. “Not that I know much about it. Can you imagine me in the army?”

Illya huffs a laugh. “No,” he says honestly. “You wouldn’t be able to take any commands. You would probably steal something and run off.”

“Only if it was expensive enough,” Napoleon says with an answering grin. “And I could fence it properly afterwards. Not worth doing if there isn’t some risk involved.” Illya grins at that, an honest smile, and shakes his head.

“You are impossible,” he says.

“Believe me, I know,” Napoleon replies. He hesitates. “So…today, was that…?”

“You’re not normally lost for words, Cowboy,” Illya says. “But yes, it wasn’t great today. Why I spent whole stage surrounded by _domestiques_.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “So they all know?”

“Only Oleg,” Illya clarifies. “But team do what he says without much question, and I think most of them have guessed already.” He shrugs. “It’s the one thing Oleg understands. He served himself, decades ago, so…he understands it.”

He pauses, staring out at the vague silhouettes he can just about see in the darkness. “There aren’t words,” he says eventually. “I can’t describe it. But I woke up this morning with echo of gun fire in my head. I stepped outside, and all I could think about was how open that courtyard was, where I needed to assign men, how easy it would be for stampede to happen if someone started shooting.” He pauses, and forces himself to breathe. “That sort of training never goes away.”

“Is there not medication you can take to help?” Napoleon asks. “Not trying to insinuate anything at all there, Peril, but medication can be helpful.”

“Not if I want to be here,” Illya points out. “Anything useful is banned for Tour. Besides, it’s rare that I need it. Tour always makes it worse, especially now I’m trying to keep you off my back and win jersey.” Napoleon cracks a smile at that, but is quiet for a moment. Illya waits for another question, one he can see forming in Napoleon’s expression.

“Were you ever sent on deployment?” Napoleon asks.

Illya nods shortly. “Many times,” he manages to get out as an answer. “I don’t think I could ever go back to desert again. Can’t even go near beaches, much.” Napoleon’s expression isn’t easy to read, in the twilight, but Illya thinks he looks shocked. He shrugs. “You watch someone bleed out on sand and suddenly beaches become much less appealing.” Napoleon flinches slightly at that, and Illya grimaces. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologise for the shit you’ve been through,” Napoleon replies. “God, it makes my upbringing seem like a walk in the park.” He makes an aborted movement towards Illya, but stops himself at the last minute. Illya wonders what he would have done, if he had followed through.

“That doesn’t make what you had easy,” Illya offers, and Napoleon, to his surprise, cracks a smile.

“Well, we’ve both been fucked over by life, then, Peril,” he says, and Illya can’t help but smile back. “We’re still here, though, so I guess that has to count for something.”

Illya breathes out, and when he breathes back in he thinks, for a second, that he can smell heat and dust and the tang of cordite, can feel the slickness of gun oil between his fingers. His next breath shudders in his chest, and he’s suddenly terrified that if he looks away from the vague silhouettes of the Alps across from them then they won’t be there, if he shuts his eyes he’ll be back in the desert with a rifle in his hands. He can hear the echo of machine gun fire, the deep bass of artillery that crawls up from the ground through his feet and wraps itself around his throat.

Suddenly there’s a solid weight by his side, and a hand slipping around his. Long fingers curl around his wrist, pressing slightly into his pulse point. “Peril,” Napoleon says softly. “We’re in France, we’re in Modane, we’re on the Tour de France and you’re currently kicking my ass. It’s okay, Illya, it’s all okay. Wherever you think you are, you’re not there anymore.”

Illya squeezes his eyes shut and sags back against the wall, Napoleon a solid warmth by his side. “I know where I am, Cowboy,” he mutters. There’s a relieved huff from Napoleon next to him.

“Just…repeat it back to me, Peril,” Napoleon says. He still hasn’t let go of Illya’s wrist, is dragging his thumb back and forth across the skin on the inside. “Tell me where you are.”

“That bad at geography, Cowboy?” Illya asks, but his breath hitches and Napoleon just presses on his wrist slightly. “We’re in France,” he repeats back to Napoleon. “In Modane. It is second week of Tour, and yes, I am kicking your arse right now.”

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “It’s a fifteen second lead and you know it, Peril,” he says. “I’ll have it back within a week, just in time for Paris.” He brushes his thumb across the inside of Illya’s wrist again. “Better?”

Illya hesitates, pushing at his own mind slightly to see how much it will give. He’s a little surprised to find that it has shored up somewhat, that now all he can smell on the air is the scent of the larch trees. He nods. “How did you know to do that?”

Napoleon shrugs. “I may not be familiar with PTSD, but I am familiar with what a panic attack looks like when it starts, and I’m familiar with how to head them off before they get bad. Doesn’t always work, but it can help.” He finally lets go of Illya, his wrist slipping from his grasp. “Shitty childhood, remember?”

Illya shakes his head. “I don’t understand you,” he says again. “I don’t…what are you?”

“A riddle, wrapped in mystery, inside an enigma, and all clad in far too much lycra for my taste,” Napoleon replies promptly. At Illya’s blank look, he sighs. “Churchill? No? He said that about Russia as well, actually, so it fits perfectly. Well, not the bit about lycra.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Illya points out. “You’re not Russian, I am. You are furthest thing from Russian you can possibly get.”

“I would be offended if I wasn’t American, and thus so sure of my own inflated self-worth that I paid no attention to that insult,” Napoleon says, a real grin curling his lips. Belatedly, Illya realises how close they’re standing now, how if he leant forwards just a few inches, he and Napoleon would be breathing the same air.

“You still okay, Peril?” Napoleon asks. He looks worried, and reaches out for Illya’s wrist again. Illya breathes in and out, feels the press of the wall against his back, and lets himself slump back against it.

“I’m okay,” he murmurs. “You worry too much, Cowboy.”

“Well, someone has to do it,” Napoleon says. “Is there anything specific that I can do to help?”

Illya shrugs. “It’s not specific, the… the symptoms. Most days I’m fine. Some days it’s just being too aware of people around me, getting nervous in large crowds because too many people make situation very difficult to control. Sometimes it’s…echoes. Like I can hear machine gun fire, or sound of artillery. Very rarely, it’s…” He trails off. “I don’t know English word for it. When you end up in your memories?”

“Flashbacks,” Napoleon prompts with a nod. “Yeah, I think you mean that. They’re not pretty.” Illya looks at him questioningly, and Napoleon shrugs. “Abuse leaves its marks, unfortunately, especially on a kid,” he says. “I…well, I don’t want to say I grew out of it, because that’s a complete disservice to you, but it was a long time ago, and it is mostly a thing of the past. But yeah, I know a little bit about what flashbacks are.”

Illya huffs, and is quiet for a long moment. “It’s easier to talk about, here,” he says, and he doesn’t say _with you_ because that is something he doesn’t want to think about, even in his own head.

The twilight has slowly been giving way to darkness whilst they’ve been outside, and Illya can’t see the mountains anymore. “I have had doctors and therapists try to pull these words out of me for years, and I spend two weeks with you, and I’m telling you all this.” He huffs a brief laugh. “And I’m telling you that I can tell you. It makes no sense.”

“Do you want a handwaving scientific answer to that, or do you actually want me to shut up and listen, Peril?” Napoleon asks. “Because I do have an answer.”

“You are not scientist, Cowboy,” Illya feels compelled to point out. “You’ve studied Art History. I’m more of scientist than you, and I left school at sixteen.” He actually enjoyed science in school, and was considering studying it before the army snapped him up, and he’d specialised a little in explosives when in the army when he’d had the chance to do so. “I’m a little more qualified to talk about science than you are, I think.”

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “I’m an arrogant American who assumes that he’s amazing at everything, of course,” he replies. “Anyway, the actual answer is something to do with our circadian rhythm, the part of our brain that recognises when it’s night and tells us to go to sleep.” He waves his hand. “It’s far more complicated than that, but anyway, something to do with that means a chemical change in our brains, and it makes us more likely to just talk. Tell people secrets, and everything.”

Illya thinks it over. “It makes sense,” he says eventually, thinking of the many times he’s been on sentry duty in the middle of the night and how easy it was to talk to the soldier on duty with him, how easily they shared their lives in quiet whispers under the night sky of whatever part of the world they’d ended up in that time.

He can remember being in some woods somewhere, their platoon harbour set up for the night. Everyone was asleep apart from the six sentries, arranged in twos at each point of the triangle made by their tents. The moon had been full, and enough moonlight filtered through the branches for them to be able to make out the silhouettes of the trees around them. Illya remembers staring out at the darkness with the other soldier, finger resting along the rifle, just above the trigger. He remembers thinking every five minutes that he could see movement, or hear enemy coming through the wood, and he and the other soldier were on high alert for the entire hour of their duty. Still, through all of it they hadn’t stopped whispering to each other snippets of their lives, like they didn’t have a choice but let the words fall from their lips to fill the darkness.

“In darkness, everything is…I don’t know the word for it again,” Illya says. “косвенный?”

Napoleon frowns. “Indirect?” he asks. “No, that doesn’t seem right.” He pulls out his phone and Illya leans over to see him googling synonyms of indirect.

They spend a good five minutes before Illya clicks his fingers. “Circumstantial,” he says suddenly, interrupting Napoleon, who has moved on to scrolling through an online dictionary. “It’s circumstantial. Is that right?”

“You’re the one who is fluent in Russian, not me,” Napoleon says. “But sure, that sounds like a good translation. You want to continue your thoughts from five minutes ago?”

Illya gives him a look, and Napoleon grins. “What I was going to say,” Illya says, supressing the urge to roll his eyes, “is everything is circumstantial in dark.”

“ _The_ dark, Peril,” Napoleon says absently, shutting down his phone and putting it away. “You’ve been dropping your articles all evening.”

Illya gives him another look. “Can I finish?” Napoleon waves a hand at him, a grin curling his lips, and Illya sighs. “I was being serious, Cowboy,” he says. “Everything is circumstantial, in _the_ dark. There is no proof that anything exists out there. We can’t see the mountains, even if we know they’re there. Beyond each other, there’s nothing that can be proved.” He drops his gaze from Napoleon’s face, grimacing. “It sounded better in my head.”

“No, no I see where you’re coming from,” Napoleon says. “I mean, the concept of darkness as a separate entity has been used in literature and art for centuries, and there are thousands of different interpretations of the idea, but yeah, I think I can understand what you’re saying. It’s easier to talk like this at night because things aren’t proven to exist, beyond this.” He waves a hand between the two of them. “It makes it easier to talk, because if the rest of the world doesn’t exist, then maybe everything that happened is just words, and nothing more.” He grins. “As one of my professors once told me, it’s not true until you can prove it.”

Illya huffs a brief laugh, and tips his head back so it’s pressing back against the wall. The stones are cool beneath his skin. “You’re impossible, Cowboy,” he murmurs. “Absolutely impossible.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” Napoleon says. He leans back against the wall next to Illya, a solid warm weight by his side, and it’s nearly an hour before they go back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings: description of a panic attack due to PTSD (though not too graphic), character who has PTSD and discussion of said PTSD and why he has it._
> 
> Why Illya is worried about where a vehicle can get in, at the beginning, is because Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devicess, VBIEDs, were common in Iraq and Afghanistan (essentially car bombs).
> 
> Illya's backstory isn't very different to the movie, but I still wanted to explore his past and how it got him to the Tour. This also explains somewhat why he feels like he owes Oleg- Oleg was the one who helped him go from losing the army to riding in the Tour. I also want to make clear here that PTSD doesn't just affect people from the military, it's something that can arise from any traumatic event, it's just that Illya, in particular, only sees it as something from his military past. This is also the beginnings of some very tentative development for Oleg, in a way. It was interesting to get into his character a little more in this chapter.
> 
> Any useful medication Illya would be taking for PTSD would most likely be banned by the Tour- they're very strict about drugs, given all the doping scandals that have happened during the Tour (which I've conveniently decided to ignore for this story).
> 
> What Napoleon says about why you are more likely to tell secrets at night is actually true, and something I read a while ago in New Scientist- I can't find the link, sorry.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Next chapter will probably go up in a few days, and then after that there will be the big plot twist that you'll all hate me for...


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter almost made my cry, but not in a bad way! If you feel you need to, check the warnings in the end notes, but beware, there be spoilers.
> 
> Yet another balcony scene, but this is going to be the last one for quite a while. Also, this one is a little heavy in places, but it is worth it.

_It’s well into the second week of the Tour, and this has really turned into a two-man race._

_Yes, Nicole, we’re coming towards the end of the mountains soon and still, it’s Solo and Kuryakin battling it out for the yellow jersey. Kuryakin has a fifteen second lead over Solo, thanks to his immense power when it comes to the climbs, but Solo is sitting on his tail and not moving. The final week of the Tour, when we get back to flatter ground, is going to be very interesting._

_It really could go either way, Chris. It’s impossible to tell._

_Right now we’re watching them climb up yet another steep mountainside, Solo sitting on Kuryakin’s wheel. Both have their domestiques around them to ease the ride somewhat, but the pace that they’re going is still remarkable, and the other riders in the group are beginning to look haggard._

_For those who have just joined us, Solo and Kuryakin appear to have a fierce rivalry going on. Kuryakin is an unknown who sprang into the spotlight when the Mercedes team leader, Weber, crashed in the time trial. Everyone was sure this Tour was going to be Solo’s to win, when Weber went down, but Kuryakin appeared and threw a spanner into the works._

_Yes, it’s unlikely Solo took too kindly to a former domestique having such a hold over him. He has managed to win the jersey back at points, but he can’t be pleased. This race is not running to his rules._

_Things did calm down somewhat after that crash last week, where both Solo and Kuryakin were brought down, and then battled their way back to the front. That was a truly remarkable piece of riding, and it seems like they did put aside their differences to work together on that one._

_Well, there was no way either of them could make it back to the front on their own, and they knew it. Whether there’s been any decrease in animosity between the two of them since then remains to be seen. Their interviews make no mention of it, both being unfailingly professional now when they talk about the other._

_Yes, after the first few days of the Tour I think the publicity reps for both teams had words with them both about talking to the press. Things certainly weren’t as professional back at the beginning, when-_

_-oh, look, Solo’s hand has gone up as they’re climbing and he’s slipping out of the pack! He’s slowing down, looking behind him, and yes-_

_-that looks like mechanical trouble. Something is wrong with his bike and he’s urging the motorcyclists past him so the Alfa Romeo car can reach him with a replacement bike._

_This is not good for him. Already the group have moved on, and- oh, and Johnson is attacking, he’s surging up the road to try and take some time away from Solo, leaving the group behind._

_But look, Kuryakin is up out of the saddle and going to catch him, it looks like Kuryakin is going to take advantage of Solo’s bad luck and try and break away, establish his lead-_

_-no, he’s not! He’s caught up to Johnson and is bringing him back into the fold! Johnson looks annoyed, and is saying something to Kuryakin there, but it looks like Kuryakin has decided that they’re not going to take advantage of a mechanical problem, that the group is going to keep the same pace, and wait for Solo to rejoin them._

_Well, that is an exemplary piece of sportsmanship there. Kuryakin did have every right, based on the official rules, to attack and gain ground over Solo, even if it would have earned him the ire of many cyclists. There are unwritten rules in this race about when to attack and when to hold off, and even if Solo is not wearing the yellow jersey right now, it seems Kuryakin is determined to respect his fellow cyclist. After all, the mechanical issues are no fault of Solo’s._

_Speaking of Solo, he’s got a new bike now, and one of his domestiques has waited for him and is now leading him back up the climb. They’re making good time, and are catching up with the group, which is still being controlled by Kuryakin. A couple of cyclists in that group are looking frustrated at this, but most are helping Kuryakin hold the group and keep the pace._

_For a relative unknown, someone who was a domestique only two weeks ago, this is excellent to see of him. I don’t think anyone here has any doubt that Kuryakin is going to become a big name in the Tour after this year, and it’s always nice to see a rising star begin with such sportsmanship._

_Yes, as long as this rivalry with Solo doesn’t sour things, I think he’s going to do very well in the years to come._

0-o-0-o-0

“So, I heard that you stopped the group from leaving me in the dust.”

Illya looks up from his phone. He’s outside, again, in the evening. He knows he really should be in bed, knows that tomorrow’s descent is going to be difficult, but he’s done worse on much less sleep in the army. Besides, part of him was hoping Napoleon would find him, again, like they’ve been doing every other night or so for the past week.

“Well, I have to give you fighting chance, Cowboy,” he says as Napoleon leans on the balcony next to him. It’s early enough, still, that other people are still up, but Illya has found a secluded part of the patio that isn’t visible from the road or the hotel lobby. Napoleon glances around.

“Nice secluded spot,” he says. “You okay?”

Illya rolls his eyes. “I’m fine, Cowboy,” he says. “Better than yesterday. Just didn’t want to have Oleg find me and shout at me for being outside.” He spins his phone between his fingers. “Fixed your bike?”

“Well, I haven’t personally, but yes,” Napoleon says. “Turns out there was something wrong with the mechanics so that when I went to change gears, the chain slipped off and got stuck between spokes in the gears, which made it warp.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, the mechanics have apparently fixed it and checked for the same weakness on all my bikes, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if they actually did their jobs.”

Illya scoffs. “You need better mechanics, Cowboy,” he says. “We haven’t had single mechanical problem all Tour.”

“Yes, well we can’t all have your wonder mechanic,” Napoleon says, and Illya frowns at him, because he suddenly sounds sour. Napoleon doesn’t look at him, staring out at the town they’re now staying in for the night. “I suppose your mechanic would have never let something like that happen in the first place. What was her name, again?”

“Gaby,” Illya says, still frowning at Napoleon. “Her name is Gaby. She’s been our head mechanic for four years now.”

Napoleon hums. “And how long have the two of you been together?”

Illya stares at him, something twisting deep in his stomach. Napoleon huffs. “Don’t try and deny it, I see the way you act around her,” he tells him. “Like all of the pretences have been dropped, like you don’t need to be angry or closed off when she’s there.”

He’s watched the mechanic- Gaby, he now knows- meet Illya at the finish line many times now, has watched her fling her arms around him when he’s won back the jersey. More importantly, he has watched Illya when Gaby has been around. He’s seen Illya’s guard drop, has seen Illya soften and relax just because she was there, has seen the way he looks at her. “You don’t have to lie to me about it, Peril,” he says, ignoring the twist in his stomach. “You obviously adore her.”

Illya stares at him some more. “Cowboy,” he says. “Gaby and I aren’t…we’re not together.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “Well what are you waiting for?” he asks. “You adore her, she adores you. Boy meets girl, they live happily ever after. It’s the perfect fairytale ending.”

Illya is still staring at him, and Napoleon can’t work out why. “What, Peril?” he asks. “Have I broken some secret Russian courtship thing by speaking about it? Are you waiting to get the yellow jersey before you ask her out?”

“Cowboy,” Illya says, and his throat works. “We’re not…she’s just a friend. A very good friend, but…” He clears his throat, and breaks Napoleon’s gaze, looking down. Napoleon glances down and sees that his knuckles are white, where he’s gripping the railing so hard.

Illya clears his throat again, hands gripping the railing. “I wouldn’t ever be with Gaby,” he says quietly. “She’s only ever going to be my friend.”

“What, not Russian enough for you?” Napoleon asks.

Illya scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he mutters. “No, it’s not…I’m not…” He clears his throat again, and then looks over at Napoleon. For the first time, Napoleon suddenly realises that Illya looks terrified.

“I’m gay,” Illya says, his throat working. “So…that’s why.”

Napoleon nods, and ignores the tendril of hope that’s curling up from his chest. “Okay,” he says. “I mean, that’s fair enough, then.”

Illya breathes out and leans heavily on the railing. “I’ve never told anyone that before,” he murmurs, and that tone of voice just makes Napoleon’s heart break.

“Oh, Peril,” he says softly, and without really thinking about it he reaches out and grips Illya’s shoulder, tugging Illya towards him into an embrace. Illya remains frozen for a long moment, and then hesitantly reaches up to return the hug. His breath hitches, and Napoleon smooths a hand down his back.

“Why are you doing this?” Illya asks, his voice muffled in Napoleon’s shoulder.

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “Everyone should get a hug when they come out,” he says. “Especially if it’s the first time they’re doing it. It’s fucking terrifying.” He tightens his arms around Illya, trying to offer him what he never got himself, and Illya’s breath hitches again.

Eventually they pull apart, and Napoleon pretends not to notice Illya’s damp eyes. “I know, it’s absolutely terrifying,” he says. “But you feel better about it now, right?”

Illya huffs the barest of laughs, and nods. He wipes at his eyes. “That was harder than anything in army,” he mutters. “But yes, it…it feels better.” He breathes out, and something settles in his chest. “It’s harder to say than I thought it was going to be.”

“Yeah, it always is,” Napoleon says. “First time I came out I was terrified, and I just came out to one of the kids in the home I was in at the time. You can think it all you like in your head, but saying the words out loud, that’s a different thing entirely.” He huffs a laugh. “It helps if you just repeat it to yourself. I stood in front of a mirror, and told myself I was bisexual about twenty times before I ever said it to someone else.”

Illya nods, and stares at the railing that he’s still gripping. “I’m gay,” he mutters to himself, and then laughs, surprised. “I’m…I’m gay.” Napoleon grins, and grips his shoulder.

“Welcome to the club,” he says. “Not everyone likes us, but at least we have some good flags and a lot of puns to use.” A thought suddenly strikes him, and he pauses. “Without trying to be completely insensitive, does Gaby know?” he asks. “Because she does adore you, from what I’ve seen.”

Illya nods. “She worked it out and confronted me with it,” he says. “So yes, she knows. But I never… that conversation was mostly silent on my part. I just nodded at right moments.”

“But nobody else knows?” Napoleon asks. “You’re not out to anyone else?”

Illya drops his head. “It’s not… I can’t be gay, and represent Russia, at the same time,” he says softly. “I just can’t. They hate people…people like me. They beat them up, they get them fired, they kill them if they can get away with it. And I can’t lose this sport. It’s all I have.” He sounds miserable, and Napoleon grips his shoulder a little tighter.

“For what it’s worth, Peril,” he says. “They’re fucking idiots, and you know it. But you won’t lose this if you come out. Hell, I came into this sport openly bisexual, and I’m still here. It sucked at moments, and it was tough, but I’ve still made it here.” He rubs his hand down Illya’s back. “Times are changing, Peril. Maybe not quick enough, but it’s happening.”

Illya shakes his head. “I can’t,” he mutters. “I can’t lose this. Don’t ask me to throw this away.”

“Coming out isn’t throwing anything away,” Napoleon says fiercely. “It’s who you are, Peril, and if they can’t see that it has no impact on how well you ride a bike then fuck them. I’m not asking you to stand on the road tomorrow draped in a rainbow flag and shouting that you’re gay for everyone to hear, but…” He pauses, searching for the right words. “I had a kid write to me once, saying they loved to cycle, that they were coming to terms with their own sexuality and they were so happy to see me open about it. Somewhere, there will be a kid watching you and realising that it’s okay to be who they are.”

Illya shakes his head, and Napoleon huffs the barest of laughs. “I’m not asking anything of you, Peril,” he says. “It isn’t my place to say what you should do with your sexuality. But…just think about it.”

Illya nods, and the two of them fall silent. Napoleon tries to quieten the tendrils of hope that are curling up from his chest and wrapping around his throat, begging him to open his mouth and ask. He tries to wrestle them back down, but his impulse control has always been terrible.

“I’m probably the worst approximation of a well-adjusted person you could have right now,” Napoleon says eventually. “But do you want to talk about it? Even if you just want me to listen, I can do that.”

Illya shrugs. “You don’t have to,” he replies. “Is unfair of me to just tell you everything and expect you to have some answers to it all.”

“No, it’s me paying it forwards,” Napoleon says. “I had someone who sat down with me and listened when I came out, and who knew what I was going through. Not the first time I ever came out, but early enough that it counted. I’m paying it forwards. Maybe one day you’ll have someone come out for the first time to you, and you can do the same.”

Illya huffs. “It’s just… Gaby knows,” he begins. “But she can’t understand. I can’t talk to her about it, not really. She won’t ever really get it.”

“Yeah, sympathy only goes so far when it comes to this,” Napoleon says. “Sometimes you just have to have experienced it yourself to understand. Nobody’s situation is the same, either. Take the two of us. I’m American, and whilst there are plenty of gun-toting homophobic assholes in my country, ultimately, it’s not too bad being LGBT there. It’s even easier in France, in some regards. It’s a little stereotypical, but a Frenchman won’t ever tell you not to love. Most Europeans just don’t give enough of a shit about it.” He huffs a laugh. “Especially the British. On large, they are far too emotionally stunted to care properly.”

Illya snorts. “You have not met enough Russians,” he points out, and Napoleon laughs.

“Fair point, Peril,” he says, and there’s a hint of a smile curling Illya’s lips that makes something unfurl, deep in his stomach.

“It’s just… I spent a long time trying to deny it,” Illya says eventually, the smile fading from his lips. “Because it was easier. But that wasn’t working, so I accepted it but kept quiet. It was like...” He trails off again, and sighs. “You know when you have puzzle, and you fit two pieces together, but they don’t really fit. It’s okay, it works, but it’s not quite right.” Illya grimaces. “It felt like that.”

“Yeah, I get you,” Napoleon says. “You can live with the puzzle piece not quite fitting right, but it’s like a constant itch under your skin. And you don’t realise how irritating it is until you fix the puzzle.”

Illya shrugs. “Still feel it,” he murmurs. “Still doesn’t sit quite right.”

Napoleon sighs, and clasps his shoulder. “It will feel better with time,” he says. “And I know that’s a bullshit excuse, but it will. One day you’ll look back and realise just how comfortable you feel in your own skin, and how different it was only a short while ago. I promise.”

Illya huffs the barest of laughs. “Americans,” he mutters. “Always making promises they can’t keep.”

“Well, if you go out the starting gate promising truth and liberty and freedom, you can’t exactly back down and start only making promises you’re definitely going to keep,” Napoleon points out. “We’re fully committed to outlandish and impossible promises as a nation. It would look bad for our image if we backed down now.”

“Your image is already terrible, Cowboy,” Illya mutters, and Napoleon smirks.

“I don’t know, I’ve always been told I’m pretty far above average when it comes to my looks,” he can’t help but say. Illya rolls his eyes, and Napoleon’s grin widens. “You have to admit you walked right into that one, Peril.”

“You are impossible,” Illya says, shaking his head. “Utterly impossible.”

“And you’re the most stubborn person I think I’ve ever met,” Napoleon replies quickly, still grinning. “We make quite a pair.”

At that Illya glances at him, eyes darting to his briefly before he looks away again. He wets his lips. “According to media, we make great rivalry,” he says. “Doubt they would like it if they could see us now.”

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “Oh yes, we would completely destroy the lovely narrative they’ve been building up,” he says. “If I get one more question that’s a thinly veiled attempt to get me to make some derisive comment about you, I might just break the phones they keep thrusting into my face.”

Illya grins. “Or turn it into innuendo,” he replies. “You turn everything into innuendos.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “Why, Peril, are you listening?” he asks slyly. “I didn’t know you were that interested.”

Something is slowly unfurling in Illya’s chest, and he can’t help the grin that’s curling his lips, the way his body wants to reach out for Napoleon, pull him close. He restrains himself, but only just. “Don’t flatter yourself, Cowboy,” he says dryly, instead of reaching for the hand that Napoleon has left between them on the railing. “You’re not that good at them. Like I’ve said, you’re American. Everything you say is crass.”

Napoleon arches a brow again. “That sounds awfully like a challenge, Peril,” he says, his voice low. He stares at Illya for a moment, and Illya can’t look away.

“When this is all over,” Napoleon says slowly, and the tone of his voice makes something curl in his stomach, but he can’t tell what. Napoleon trails off, and Illya arches a brow.

“Spit it out, Cowboy,” he says.

Napoleon just breathes for a moment, and then turns to face Illya. “Do you want to get dinner?” he asks. “When all this is over?”

Illya stares at him. “Are you asking me out?” he says incredulously. “Really?”

Napoleon shrugs. “Suppose so,” he says. “We can make it a bet if that’s more interesting. Whoever gets this fucking yellow jersey gets to pick where it is, and the loser has to pay.”

Illya is still staring at him, seemingly lost for words. “You’re impossible,” he manages to get out. “Absolutely impossible.”

“I know, you’ve told me that before,” Napoleon points out, his voice still almost raw in its honesty. “So, what do you say, Peril? Because honestly, whatever this is,” and he waves his hand between the two of them, “well, I’d like to think there’s potential here.”

Illya stares at him some more, wondering just how Napoleon is able to say these words so easily. His throat works. “I can’t,” he forces himself to say. “I can’t. If someone were to see us, if the press somehow saw us, if one picture ended up online then I’d lose everything. I…I can’t.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “Are you saying no because you’re worried about someone seeing us and effectively outing you without your permission, or are you saying no because you don’t think you like me like that and can’t find a way to say that?” he asks. “Because it doesn’t have to be fancy dinner out somewhere posh. It doesn’t have to be anything public. But honestly, Peril, you’re pretty attractive and against all odds, I quite like you. If you don’t, then I’ll back off, I won’t say anything more about it. But if you do, and you’re saying no because you don’t want to be outed, then…” He shrugs. “I can understand that, I guess. But it’s easy enough to work around. If you want to.”

Illya’s throat works again, and Napoleon can feel his heart trying to leap up and grab hold of his throat. He’s not sure if it’s trying to get him to stop talking or trying to make him spill out everything that’s crowding to fall from his lips. He wrests the words back, barely, and holds up his hands. “Don’t need to answer me now,” he says. “And if I’ve made everything ridiculously awkward and you want me to leave, then I can leave.”

“No, you don’t have to go anywhere,” Illya murmurs, and Napoleon ruthlessly stamps down on that tendril of hope that curls up his throat. “Just…I can’t answer you right now. Not just now.”

“Sleep on it,” Napoleon offers. “Give me some sort of answer before one of us ends up on the podium, in case I need to plan anything.”

Illya snorts at that. “Of course, you would need to plan,” he says, a quick grin curling his lips. “I bet you go overboard with everything, when it comes to date.”

“Hey, I have taste,” Napoleon protests, and Illya snorts again.

“You’re American. Of course you don’t.” Napoleon can’t help but laugh at that, and Illya grins at him. “You can’t deny that Americans just don’t have any taste. You were the ones who invented McDonalds. We invented vodka. There is distinct difference.” He thinks for a moment. “Besides, I will have jersey, so I get to pick. You won’t have to plan anything.”

Napoleon arches a brow, and the smile that comes across his face is undeniably real. “We’ll have to see about that,” he says, his voice low. “I’ll get the jersey, and then I’ll show you just how classy an American can be. Candlelight, wine, the works.”

“I’d expect violin playing at table and expensive champagne, Cowboy,” Illya says. “Nothing less.”

“And I suppose if you won, there would be vodka?” Napoleon asks.

Illya scoffs. “We don’t just drink vodka,” he points out. “That would kill even a Russian.”

“Oh right, you eat the potatoes that you don’t make into vodka,” Napoleon says, and Illya doesn’t even think about it before cuffing him around the head. Napoleon winces, not dodging quite in time. “Hey, I’m not a super soldier!” he protests. “I didn’t have the Russian army to train feeling any pain out of me.”

“They didn’t do that,” Illya feels compelled to point out. “We just learnt to push past it. Pain is irrelevant to job that needs doing. If you can still do job, you do it. You can collapse later.”

Napoleon stares at him. “And that, Peril,” he says slowly, “is why I never joined the army. That, and I’m terrible at taking orders. Sanders hates me for it.”

“Sanders hates everyone, according to Oleg,” Illya points out. “That doesn’t make you special.”

“Oh no, Sanders has a corner of his blackened shrivelled heart reserved for just how much I piss him off,” Napoleon says, a grin quirking his lips. “I aim to make that corner bigger with every Tour.” He laughs. “Some days, I think he’s honestly just going to cut his losses and kick me out.”

“You’d have your pick of every team here,” Illya points out. “You could leave.”

“Oh, that’s a thought for another time,” Napoleon says, waving a hand. “Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.” He grins at Illya, and Illya has to stop himself from reaching for him. “I’ll see what happens, and run with it,” Napoleon tells him. “Get given an inch, and turn it into a mile with a lot of charm and some light stealing on the side. That’s what I’ve always done. It’s worked so far.”

Illya just shakes his head. “Like I said, Cowboy,” he says. “Impossible.”

Napoleon’s grin widens. “Well, you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings: coming out of a character and discussion about it._
> 
> For anyone who has been to a similar experience of coming out to anyone, you can probably understand why I nearly cried writing this. It seems fitting that I publish this chapter within Pride month. Also, everyone should get a hug when they first come out to someone, it's absolutely fucking terrifying (and a bunch of times after that- what Napoleon says is true, it takes a while to really settle into your skin once you've said it out loud).
> 
> Also, they've gone from hand-holding all the way to hugs! And they're communicating- let's just hope it lasts.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure this chapter is going to rival any previous chapters in any other works for the most horrified people in the comments. Sorry.
> 
> Warnings are in end notes, but beware that they are spoiler-heavy. Nothing gets horribly graphic or explicit, so you should be fine, but be careful if you feel that you need to.
> 
> In other news, I've just moved cities again today, which was incredibly stressful (I start a new job tomorrow as part of my degree, so have moved to a much larger city than the one my uni is in, and I'm all alone in the flat because the other people don't move in until later this month. It's all a bit nerve-wracking, but hey, at least I'm getting paid for this, so I'll be a slightly-less-than-destitute student after my first paycheck). So this is also a way of de-stressing by causing all of you a fair amount of pain.

_Welcome back from the ad break, and day thirteen of the Tour de France. We’ve entered the final day of the mountains, and what a day this is! Already we’ve seen two crashes on the narrow mountain roads, though no riders have been seriously injured and are all back up on their bikes._

_And they’ve only just begun to tackle the most difficult part of this stage, the descent of the Mont du Chat._

_Yes, they’ve just summited one of the most difficult summits on the Tour, and now they’re heading for the most difficult descent! They’ve just climbed for 8.7km at gradients of up to 15%, and now they’re descending again at terrifying speeds._

_Yes, this is probably the most difficult part of the whole Tour. The breakaway group is already flying down the mountain side, and you can see the yellow jersey of Kuryakin sitting on Solo’s wheel. Those two are still fighting it out for the yellow jersey, and the rest of the riders around them in that breakaway group are, unfortunately, only just hanging on. This is a two-man race now._

_Oh, that’s definitely true. We’ve been watching this rivalry unfold between these two for the past two weeks, and it’s making for spectacular viewing. Kuryakin has held Solo off with impressive performance after impressive performance in the mountains these past few days, but today could be the day that Solo claws it back._

_We have seen, in previous Tours, just how incredible Solo is on the descent. Whilst Kuryakin is a powerhouse in the mountains, Solo is undoubtedly faster descending, and a marvel to watch. His control over the bike is impeccable._

_Yes, this might just be the right time for him to pull away from Kuryakin and take back those seconds he needs to get the jersey. He only has to be fourteen seconds ahead of Kuryakin to do that. This might just be his ride, today._

_It’s interesting, actually, that the press has been spinning this rivalry between the two riders since the beginning of the Tour, but looking at them now-_

_-Kuryakin is sat comfortably on Solo’s wheel, as best as he can whilst descending, and Solo hasn’t seemed bothered by it. In the same way, Solo was on Kuryakin’s wheel whilst climbing, and Kuryakin didn’t pull in any of his domestiques to stop him. Perhaps this rivalry isn’t as big as the press are claiming it to be._

_Well, we all know what the reporters of the Tour are like._

_Yes, and I won’t say any more on that, because I’m getting angry looks from the publicists behind the scenes. Let’s turn back to the Tour._

_They’re about halfway down the descent of the Mont du Chat now, and according to the readings, they’re reaching speeds of nearly 70km an hour on the straight parts of the road, though of course the sharp hairpin corners have them slowing down considerably, lest they crash._

_Yes, there have been nasty crashes before on the Mont du Chat. Let’s see if we can avoid that this year._

_Kuryakin and Solo are still sitting comfortably in the breakaway group. Both of them are on their own, with both of their nearest domestiques a good thirty seconds behind them on the road, in another breakaway group. The peloton has strung out along these narrow roads, to avoid crashes._

_Everyone is looking in control in the leading group, and Solo is just beginning to inch ahead. It looks like soon enough he’s going to attack for the lead, potentially drawing Kuryakin with him._

_It’ll be interesting to see how his tactics play-_

_-oh my god!_

_Oh!_

_Kuryakin is down! Oh god, this doesn’t look good._

_Solo is down as well, but looks like he’s getting to his feet. Looking at the replay, it looks like something fell from the high banks at one side of the road, perhaps some rocks, and they landed right in front of Kuryakin. He had no time to swerve, and hit them at-_

_-god, nearly 60km an hour! Solo went down as his bike was hit by Kuryakin’s spinning across the road, but it looks like he’d had enough time to at least slow down somewhat before going down._

_This looks bad. This looks really bad. Solo is up and staggering towards Kuryakin, who is lying in the road. Even from the brief shots we’re getting as the camera continues down the road, this is looking bad. Kuryakin isn’t getting up._

0-o-0-o-0

There’s blood on the road.

That’s the first thing Napoleon realises as he hauls himself up to his feet. His head spins, and he nearly falls over again, but there’s blood on the road, and Illya-

God, _Illya._

“Medics,” he says hoarsely into the microphone at his throat as he stumbles up the road. “Medics, we –oh god, fuck, we need medics.” His entire body feels like it’s on fire, pain ricocheting around until it leaves him gasping, but he staggers across the road until he gets to where Illya is lying, lying horribly still and not moving, and god, _god_ , there’s blood on the road.

“Illya,” he rasps, and he barely feels the sting as he falls to his knees and crawls the last few feet to Illya’s side. “God, _Illya_. Peril. Can you- fuck, can you hear me?”

There’s a groan from the figure lying prone in front of him and Napoleon nearly sobs. “Illya,” he says again, leaning over him. Illya’s eyes flicker open, and he blinks before focusing on Napoleon’s face above him. “Hey, Peril,” Napoleon says, his voice trembling. “Just stay still, okay? The medics are on their way. You’re going to be okay.”

Illya breathes in and the breath catches in his throat, making him choke. Once he starts he can’t seem to stop, gasping for air as his body spasms. Each gasp sends a spike of fear lancing through Napoleon. He reaches out desperately and grasps Illya’s hand. He can see that his other arm is broken, the blood from scrapes and cuts he can’t see slowly staining the asphalt. “Peril, it’s okay,” he says desperately. “It’s okay, just breathe. It’s going to be okay. God, Illya, just breathe.”

Illya tilts his head slightly to look at him, and Napoleon’s heart jumps up into his throat. “God, fuck, don’t move your head,” he says, and he doesn’t think before he reaches out and places his other hand on Illya’s cheek, trying to keep his head still. Illya coughs again, and blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. Napoleon can feel when it reaches his hand on Illya’s cheek, the warm slickness running over his thumb.

“Cowboy,” Illya rasps, and Napoleon can see the blood staining his teeth and tongue when he speaks. “Napoleon.”

“Hey, you’re going to be okay,” Napoleon says, clutching at Illya’s hand and ignoring the red stain that’s slowly spreading over that fucking yellow jersey that Illya is wearing. “It’s going to be okay.”

Illya, somehow, smiles. It’s barely a quirk of his lips, but it’s there, and it’s enough to make Napoleon have to wrestle a sob back from his lips. “Napoleon,” he rasps again. He untangles his hand from Napoleon’s, but reaches up and grasps Napoleon’s jersey just below his throat instead, grasping onto it like it’s a lifeline. Napoleon’s hand comes up to cover his, and without really thinking about it he smooths his thumb over the back of Illya’s hand, offering the miniscule amount of comfort that he can with the gesture.

“You have to go,” Illya rasps, and Napoleon can’t quite comprehend the words, can’t understand what the hell Illya means when he’s lying bleeding, when there’s blood on his lips and more on the road. Illya coughs again, and more blood spills from his lips. There’s commotion on the road up ahead of them, but Napoleon can’t look away from Illya, can’t turn away for even a moment.

“You have to go,” Illya whispers again. “Get jersey. Get the win. It’s yours now.”

Napoleon has to wrestle back another sob at that. “Fuck the jersey,” he says desperately. “Fuck it, it doesn’t matter, not now, not with this. You’re more important than that fucking jersey.” Illya’s lips just quirk again at that, and his hand slackens slightly. Napoleon grasps at it where Illya has a hold of his jersey. “Don’t you dare,” he says, his voice trembling. “Don’t you dare let go.”

Illya tries to shake his head, but Napoleon stops him with pressure on his cheek. “Fuck, don’t move,” he spits. “Just keep still. You’re going to be okay.”

“Americans,” Illya rasps. “Always making promises they can’t keep.” He coughs again, blood colouring his lips. “You have to go. You have to win. If neither…” He trails off, choking on the blood in his throat, and Napoleon can’t help the way his heart wraps itself around his throat in fear.

Illya gasps for breath, his chest heaving, and then suddenly there are swarms of people appearing out of nowhere as finally, fucking finally, the medics get to them. Napoleon tries to hold onto Illya’s hand for as long as he can, but he gets dragged out of the way as the medics swarm around Illya, who is gasping for breath in the middle of a bloody road.

There’s the squeal of brakes, and Napoleon looks up to see the silver of Mercedes. A rider that he recognises but can’t remember the name of looks down at him.

“Solo,” he shouts at him, and Napoleon blinks. The cacophony of the world suddenly rushes back, and he can hear the medics talking behind him, the sounds of cars and bikes and people all around him. There’s an Alfa Romeo car up the road that can’t get past the ambulances, and someone is running towards him, dragging a new bike.

The Mercedes rider shouts his name again, and Napoleon stumbles to his feet as the Alfa Romeo person finally reaches him and thrusts the new bike into his hands. Almost automatically he swings his leg over, not hearing a word of what the person is shouting at him as they hand the bike over.

“Solo!” the Mercedes rider shouts again, and the word finally sinks through. Napoleon turns to him, and he grimaces. “I’ll give you a lead,” he says. “Follow me down the road. We can catch them up if we go now.”

The world is still tilting around him, and Napoleon can feel Illya’s blood drying on him, but some part of his mind that isn’t screaming incoherently takes control and makes him put his feet on the pedals and nod at the Mercedes rider, the man who, by every right, shouldn’t be helping him. The other rider nods, and then sets off. Napoleon follows without really meaning to, leaving Illya lying behind him in the road.

It takes him five minutes before the wind in his face, the pine trees blurring as he passes them, is enough to shock him out of what’s just happened. It takes him another few minutes before he can start to ride again, but once he does it becomes all there is. The feel of the bike on the road, the way the wind is whipping past him and tugging at the collar of his jersey, the road unfurling out before him, he desperately clutches at it until it’s all that there is, until it becomes so important that he can’t see Illya gasping for breath as he lies on the road, he can’t smell the copper tang of the blood from Illya’s lips. All there is, is the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings: description of high-speeds (for bikes) road crash involving both characters, with major injuries to one character, which are witnessed by the other._
> 
> The Mont du Chat was a real descent in the 2017 Tour, where Richie Porte crashed and broke his pelvis. A lot of people were quite unhappy at the descent being in the Tour, because it's so steep and they end up going so fast down the mountainside that it's really dangerous. The route of the Tour is changed every year (if often starts in different countries as well), so the descent isn't common.
> 
> Again, sorry. I'd like to remind everyone that this story does end happily. It's just that there's about 40k left until the end and that happiness is reached.
> 
> Sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> I do hope that you all realise I'm not actually sorry, I was waiting to get to write this scene for _ages_. I'm just trying to mitigate the amount you scream at me in the comments.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually surprised that nobody tried to eviscerate me when I published the last chapter. But then again, we all like angst in this fandom, so I guess I shouldn't really be surprised.
> 
> Anyway, here's a longer chapter to make up for all the angst, and because I've just finished my first week at work! It's gone really well, I don't really have any idea what I'm going to be doing but I think it's going to be an interesting project that I'm working on, and everyone there is really nice.
> 
> As I've mentioned to a few people in the comments, Napoleon is getting a heavy dose of angst over the next few chapters, which Illya escapes by virtue of being unconscious. This crash is going to change a lot of things in this Tour. Check end notes for specific warnings, but you should be okay compared to last chapter.

Napoleon barely sees the finish line. He only stops because the road ends, because suddenly there are crowds of people around him, officials running forwards, the black and red of Alfa Romeo jackets pushing past them. Sanders is the first face he manages to make out as he heaves for breath, slumping over his bike.

“Solo,” Sanders says sharply. “Solo, come on.” He grabs Napoleon’s arm and goes to sling it over his shoulder, but Napoleon shakes him off. His bike falls to the ground, forgotten, as he limps away.

“Illya,” he says as soon as they’re moving, Sanders guiding him towards the Alfa Romeo bus. “Illya, what…is he okay?”

“There’s no news,” Sanders says as he fends off reporters. “And I haven’t asked. Get on the bike and start cooling down, unless we need to get you to the doctors?”

Napoleon just stares at him. “You haven’t…he was bleeding out on the fucking road!” he shouts. “The fucking middle of the road! I was there! And you haven’t even asked?” He pushes past Sanders, shoving people aside as he heads for the silver of the Mercedes bus. Sanders runs after him, but Napoleon ignores the pain ricocheting around his body and pushes away the press and crowds of people clamouring for his attention.

Oleg is standing outside the bus, pacing up and down. Their mechanic, Gaby, is nearby. Both look pale, Gaby glancing at her phone every few seconds. Napoleon can feel his heart reaching up for his throat.

“Illya,” he says as soon as they notice him there. The words stick in his throat, and he has to force them out. “Is he okay?”

Oleg stares at him, as if he can’t quite work out why Napoleon cares. “He’s been airlifted to hospital in Chambéry,” he says slowly. “They…they managed to stabilise him on the road, but…it’s serious. He’s at the hospital now.”

Gaby is alternating between staring at him and staring at her phone. Napoleon rubs a trembling hand over his face, trying not to be sick. “God,” he whispers. “Jesus fucking Christ. Is there…when will there be news?”

“When there’s news,” Oleg just says. “They’ll call when they know more, apparently, but it could be hours.” Beside him, Gaby trembles, and her knuckles are white where she’s clutching her phone so hard. Napoleon presses a hand to his mouth, trying to reign in everything that’s flooding through him that he can’t even put a name to.

Sanders comes to his side, and for once Oleg doesn’t look at him like something he’s scraped off his shoe. “Do you remember anything of the fall?” Sanders asks Napoleon. “Why it happened?”

Napoleon shakes his head. Out of the corner of his eye he can see that they’re beginning to draw a crowd as more riders come over the finish line, as the press slowly begin to crowd around them. Officials are keeping them back, but it will only last so long. The click and flash of the cameras is making him feel sick.

“Is there…is there footage?” he asks. “Did they get it on camera?”

Oleg just nods, and Gaby’s face, if possible, turns paler. “Looks like fans on the road above dislodged rocks, which fell into the road in front of Illya. There was nothing anyone could have done.”

The sick feeling doesn’t go away, and Napoleon presses a hand to his mouth again. Sanders places a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Let us know as soon as there is any news,” he says to Oleg, who just nods.

Napoleon lets himself be pulled away. He makes it back to the Alfa Romeo bus before he gives in to the pressure rising steadily in his throat. Someone grabs him and shoves him towards the bathroom of the bus as he gags, and he makes it to the toilet just in time as he starts to retch. There are concerned murmurs from behind him, and distantly he recognises the voices of a couple of his teammates, but he’s too concerned with trying not to crack his chin on the toilet seat, and the trembling that’s slowly overcoming his whole body.

He takes a breath that cuts off as he retches, but then manages another breath, and then another, until he can breathe without it hitching and catching in his throat. Without his permission his body slumps, leaning against the wall. The way his torso is twisting hurts, but he doesn’t care. He can’t even think enough to move.

A hand falls on his shoulder. “You alright, mate?” someone asks, and Napoleon almost laughs at the strangeness of the question. He’s throwing his guts up in the toilet of the team bus after seeing Illya gasp for breath and bleeding on the road, and they ask if he’s okay.

A hand grips under his arm and then there are people hauling him to his feet. His body protests, barking in pain, but there are people there who steady him when he stumbles. “Hey, it’s okay,” someone says. “You’re not too badly hurt, are you?”

Napoleon just shakes his head, and his teammates push him gently towards the sofa. Someone gets a bottle of water, and then someone else makes him drink it. It feels like it takes a good five minutes of just sitting there, staring at the carpet, until the haze finally clears from his mind enough to tell what the hell is going on.

Napoleon looks up at the other Alfa Romeo team sitting around him, Sanders lurking in the corner on his phone. “I want to see the footage,” he says.

The teammate next to him jolts. “I don’t think that’s a great idea,” he says cautiously, but Napoleon just shakes his head, and holds out a hand for the tablet. Someone takes it, and someone must have already been watching it, because the footage is already uploaded and paused on a shaky image of Illya lying in the road as the camera continues down the descent. A finger dragging across the screen rewinds it, too quickly for Napoleon to make anything out other than the sickening blur of motion in reverse, and then it’s handed it to Napoleon.

He can barely breathe as he watches the crash. Somehow, from this point of view it doesn’t look real. It doesn’t look like it was Illya who’s bike suddenly shuddered and then flipped over in a shriek of metal, doesn’t look like it was Illya that was flung from the bike and was hurled into the stone wall at the side of the road, bouncing off and finally skidding to a stop on the tarmac. It doesn’t look like himself, swerving too late and hitting Illya’s wrecked bike as it spins across the road. Even the figure scrambling desperately to his feet and stumbling up towards the other prone figure, lying still in the road, doesn’t look familiar. They move out of sight of the camera before he can see himself fall to his knees beside Illya. Napoleon pauses it, and nods.

“Oleg was right,” he says, surprised at how steady his voice is. “There was nothing he could have done to avoid that.”

Sanders shakes his head. “The fucking Mont du Chat,” he mutters, more to himself than anyone else. He looks Napoleon up and down, and then turns back to his phone. “I’m getting the team doctors in for you, and you are going to stay here until they look you over. You’re obviously hurt. And then you have a yellow jersey to accept, though we’re going to have to clean you up first. You have half an hour to get your head in a remotely acceptable space to be in front of the press. Everyone else, don’t let him run off.”

Napoleon lets himself shut off as Sanders leaves, and then the doctors come in. It’s easier than replaying the shaky footage in his head, easier to just fall quiet and pretend like none of this is really happening. It’s been a long time since he’s felt like this, since he’s had to retreat inside his own head like this, but apparently he hasn’t forgotten how to do so.

Other people direct him, doctors making him get up and sit back down a hundred times as they wrap the worst of the scrapes, slap ice packs on what feels like half his body. He can feel the sting of the scrapes across his back and shoulders, the deep ache that will surely turn into colourful bruises in a few hours, but it doesn’t feel like any of it is happening to him. He’s just a spectator in his own body. It makes this easier, makes it easier to not think of those few seconds he doesn’t quite remember beyond the shriek of metal and the frantic pounding of his heartbeat in his ears, the sound of Illya choking on his own blood.

He’s abruptly and unkindly jolted out of his own head when Sanders returns, a yellow jersey, Alfa Romeo emblazoned across the chest, in his hands. “Put this on,” he says, throwing it into Napoleon’s lap. “They’re unsure whether to do the whole podium thing, haven’t got their heads out of their arses to make a decision yet, but the reporters outside are clamouring for something.”

Napoleon doesn’t hear half of what Sanders says. He’s too busy trying to fight the sudden nausea that’s gripping his throat, the food that had been pressed on him in the past half hour as doctors fussed around him threatening to make a reappearance. Sanders snaps his fingers in front of his face. “The doctors said you don’t have a concussion, so are you just not listening?”

Napoleon blinks. “What?” he asks. He can’t remember what Sanders had said. He’s too busy trying not to think about how Illya’s blood had seeped through his yellow jersey, lying there on the road.

“Put it on,” Sanders repeats with a scowl, jabbing a finger at the jersey. “You have a team to represent.”

Napoleon looks down slowly at the jersey in his lap and is somehow surprised to see that it’s clean and new. Something ticks over in some corner of his mind, and slowly starts to burn.

“I’m not wearing this,” he says. His voice is quiet, but the entire bus falls silent as soon as he speaks. Sanders looks shocked, but Napoleon stares up at him with a weary defiance. “I won’t wear this,” he repeats steadily. “Not today, not tomorrow. Nobody rides with a yellow jersey tomorrow, not after this. Not after Illya.”

Sanders looks like he’s slowly combusting from the inside out, but surprisingly, one of the other teammates just reaches over and pulls the yellow jersey from Napoleon’s lap. “He’s right, Sanders,” he says quietly. “There’s precedence for this, at the least, and it’s the respectful thing to do. He’ll put the jersey back on after tomorrow, but it wouldn’t be right to wear it after this crash. Not tomorrow.”

A few others murmur in agreement. Sanders glares deeply at Napoleon. “Fine, but you have to tell the press,” he snaps. “Get a jacket on to hide the worst of the bruises and get out there to talk to them. Don’t fuck it up more than you already have.”

He stalks out of the bus before anyone can say anything. There’s a few muttered comments from teammates. “Ignore him, Solo,” someone says. “Let’s get you cleaned up a bit and get someone to organise a press briefing outside. Just a short one, to keep them off your back a bit, and then we’ll get moving to the hotel and everything. Do you need more painkillers?”

“I’ve had as many as I can take,” Napoleon replies, but his mind isn’t really there. There’s something slowly unfurling in a corner of his mind, something that is sparked and set roaring in his chest as he’s hustled outside in front of cameras in a jacket and a baseball cap to try and cover up some of the bruises and how every bone in his body is etched with exhaustion.  

He doesn’t know what to do with it until he is standing there, cameras nearly blinding him with their flashes. He turns to head back to the bus once he’s given the statement someone else wrote for him and the reporters crowd forwards, shouting questions over one another in their effort to be the first to be answered. Napoleon ignores them, keeping his head down, but he can still hear the questions they’re shouting at him.

“Solo!” one of them calls. “How does it feel to be wearing the yellow jersey now? How does it feel to have a clean run at the title?”

Napoleon doesn’t consciously think to stop, but his feet stutter to a halt at the question anyway as something roars inside his chest. He spins on one heel, and the horde of press stumble over each other as they try to stop and thrust a microphone in his face.

“Listen in,” Napoleon says, ignoring Sanders trying to push through the crowd, ignoring the tacky feeling of blood on his hands even though he knows they cleaned it all off before the podium, ignoring anything but that roaring in his chest. “I’m only going to say this once.”

The press crowd closer, looking pleased. Napoleon takes a breath. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” he says.

The reporters stare at him, but the roaring hasn’t abated in his chest. He can hear it now, hear his heart thundering as it tries to jump up into his throat. “Illya is in hospital,” he says. “You all have seen the footage, you all know that this is serious. And you are asking me whether I’m happy I now don’t have to compete with him for the jersey.” He stares the reporters down, until they start shifting uncomfortably.

“You’ve had so much fun this Tour, spinning out this whole rivalry between the two of us,” he says, trying to restrain the anger that’s spiralling through him now, at the image of Illya gasping for breath in the middle of the road, at the way the press has been treating them this whole time. “Had so much fun taking every small moment and turning it into another story, working your sensationalism until what is actually happening is twisted beyond recognition, all for another five minutes on the news. It ends here.”

A reporter steps forwards, brandishing her microphone in front of her. “Are you saying that there’s more to this rivalry than what we’re seeing?” she asks, and Napoleon barely just stops himself from throttling her.

“For the love of- put aside the fact that you are the press for one moment and think like a human being!” Napoleon snaps at her. “It ends here. A man is in hospital. He’s badly hurt. An hour ago I was kneeling next to him on the fucking road as he struggled to breathe.” His breath hitches, and he fights to keep his voice even, dredging up the anger carving into him to bolster it. “How dare you reduce that to the jersey? How dare you put aside your humanity to try and turn this into another one of your goddamn stories?”

The reporters are cowed into silence. Napoleon’s lip curls as he stares them down. “There are limits,” he says. “There are lines that you do not cross. You are treading awfully close to them right now, and I have been through a lot today. I am not in the mood to be patient with you.”

There’s a surge of vindication that thrums through him when Napoleon steps forwards and the reporters shudder back as one. “It ends here,” he repeats. “It ends now. Show some fucking decency.” Without another word, he pushes through them and walks off.

Oleg is standing outside the Mercedes bus, watching the rest of the team as they cool down. Napoleon heads straight for him, dodging Sanders as he does so. “Any news?” he asks.

Oleg shakes his head. “Nothing yet, and I said we would update you when we got some,” he says. “Go back to your own team, Solo.”

Solo barely manages to stop himself throttling someone else, and distantly thinks that it might not be a good thing, that he’s come that close that many times since the crash. He opens his mouth, ready to argue his point, push Oleg until he caves out of sheer annoyance, but then an idea occurs to him, and he stops.

“Fine,” Napoleon says instead. “Let me know.” He turns and walks away, and waits until he’s sure Oleg is occupied with his own team before drifting over to the side of the bus. At the last minute he darts around the corner, and is now effectively hidden from the crowds of the square. He waits a long moment, but there’s no sound of commotion, or anyone following him.

This also has the advantage of putting him by the workshops, and Napoleon spends a few minutes quietly threading through them until he reaches the one with Mercedes emblazoned across the doors. The door is cracked open, and he smiles quietly to himself upon guessing right from only having met her for a few minutes.

The Mercedes mechanic is underneath a bike, and any vaguely pleased feelings that had been trying to take root upon guessing she would be in here dry up and vanish when he sees the mangled frame, the bent spokes of the wheel. Napoleon’s breath stutters on his throat. “Is that it?” he asks quietly from the doorway.

Gaby jumps, and is halfway to throwing a wrench at him before she seems to realise who it is. Her arm pauses, but she doesn’t lower the wrench. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Napoleon can’t take his eyes off the bike. It’s damaged, broken beyond repair from the crash. Both wheels are completely bent out of shape, and even the frame is warped and twisted, half of the paint scraped off to reveal the dull metal beneath. “Is that his bike?” he asks around a lump in his throat. “Is that…they picked it up?”

Gaby glares at him. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” she snaps, but Napoleon can see her hand trembling, the way her jaw is set that means she’s trying to stop herself shouting or screaming or crying, or some combination of all of them. He holds up his hands.

“Would you believe me if I said I cared for Illya?” he just asks. “Because I don’t know what else to say. Oleg won’t tell me anything, Sanders hates me, and…. god, Gaby, I just want to know if he’s going to be okay.”

Gaby glares at him some more, but slowly lowers the wrench. Napoleon takes that as his cue to step inside and he does, until he’s mere feet from the mangled wreck of the bike. His breath stutters again, and he can’t help but reach out and trace the frame, his fingers running over the twisted metal. “God, Peril,” he whispers. “What the hell have you done?”

Gaby is still eyeing him suspiciously. “He hates you,” she says. “Why are you here?”

“If he hates me that much, then he has a strange way of showing it,” Napoleon replies, still tracing his fingers over the wreck of the bike. “Maybe at first, but without sounding horribly self-centred, I don’t think he hates me anymore.”

He looks up at her. “Why do you think I stayed on that road?” he asks.

“Because somewhere deep within you you’re a decent human being?” Gaby offers, and a ghost of a smile quirks Napoleon’s lips. Her glare deepens. “I don’t trust you, Solo,” she says. “How do I know you actually care about him? How do I know you’re not just after information so you can spin it to get you five more minutes on the news?”

Napoleon glares at her. “Don’t you dare,” he snaps. “I get enough of it from that fucking press, I won’t have everyone thinking I’m so shallow I’d rather take five minutes on the news over Illya being here.” His breath hitches on the last few words, and he presses his hand to his mouth.

“Okay, fine,” he says eventually, when he’s gotten control back over his own voice. “You want proof? That I care, that I know him, that we’re not mortal enemies or whatever bullshit the press is spinning?” Gaby just nods, and Napoleon sends a quick prayer that Illya will forgive him for this, not that he’s feeling inclined to believe in any God right now. “I know he’s gay,” he says. “He told me. Of his own free will, by the way, if you distrust me that much. So yeah, I know him. I just want to know if he’s going to be okay.”

Gaby eyes him for a long moment, but the suspicion, at least, has faded. “I still don’t like you,” she says. “But I believe you.” She shakes her head. “Doesn’t mean I have any news.”

Napoleon tries to not let his expression crumple, but Gaby must see it anyway. “Here,” she says, pulling out her phone and handing it to him. “Put in your number. I’ll text you as soon as I hear anything.”

“Thank you,” Napoleon says, and he means it. He wills his hands to be still as he types in his number, but they start trembling anyway as he’s finishing. He shoves his hands in his pockets once Gaby takes the phone back, and she eyes him again.

“What is he to you?”

Napoleon blinks. “What?”

Gaby crosses her arms and stalks towards him, wrench still dangling from one finger. Even though she’s far smaller than him, has to tilt her head back to look up at him properly, Napoleon can understand why Illya seems to fall into place around her. “Fine, you’ve been friendlier recently than you were at the start of this fucking thing,” she says, her voice heated. “And Illya hasn’t been so scathing about you this past week. But I saw you coming off the road. You were a mess. You still are now, even if you’re lying to yourself about this.” She steps even closer to him. “What the hell is this?”

Napoleon blinks, and there are a thousand words teeming on his lips, begging to be spoken. He draws in a shattered breath, and then another.

“I was going to take him to dinner,” is what he manages to say, without even meaning to. Gaby blinks, and steps back. There’s a sudden cold fury on her face that makes Napoleon almost shiver.

“Explain,” she says. “Because if you’re fooling him around, if he’s another one of your fucking conquests, then I swear I will make sure this Tour does not end well for you. I will bury you.”

Despite it all, her fire makes Napoleon’s lips twitch in the ghost of a smile. “We had a bet, of sorts,” he says. “Whoever wins, gets to pick where we go for dinner. The loser has to pay.” Any traces of a smile disappear from his face, and he stares at the mangled remains of the bike again. “I was going to take him out in Paris. I’d thought about it, if I won. This little hole-in-the-wall place that I know, that does the best steak I’ve ever had. I was going to take him there.”

Gaby’s expression softens slightly. “So, you’re serious, then,” she says, and just like that, Napoleon knows that he is. Knows that whatever this is, this thing that isn’t really anything yet between them, he wants it more than he’s wanted anything like this for a long time. It’s terrifying.

He sucks in a breath, and only just manages to nod in answer to Gaby’s question. Gaby frowns. “Is he?”

“I don’t know,” Napoleon manages to get out. “I…I don’t…” He sucks in another breath, running his hand over his face. “God, Gaby, there was so much blood.”

Gaby’s face blanches, but she doesn’t flinch. “I’ve seen the footage,” she says quietly. “I know. It looked bad.”

“It was,” Napoleon says, willing his voice not to waver. He can tell that part of her wants more, wants to know more than what the shaky camera footage showed. It’s a strange sort of longing, but one that he thinks he can understand. “He was…god, Gaby, by the time I realised what had happened he was barely conscious. I got to him as quickly as I could, but…” He laughs bitterly. “What the hell could I do? He couldn’t breathe, Gaby. He couldn’t fucking breathe. He kept trying to and then he’d start choking and there was blood on his lips from his lungs, and all I could do was kneel there and hold his fucking hand as he couldn’t breathe.”

He breaks off, and presses his hand to his mouth. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Jesus fucking Christ. I’m sorry, Gaby. You didn’t need to hear that.”

“You needed to say it, though,” Gaby says carefully, even as the wrench in her grip shakes as her hands tremble. “I can’t imagine…”

“Yeah,” Napoleon breathes, letting his head drop down as he slumps against the wall. He stuffs his hands deep into his pockets. “Yeah.” He huffs a bitter laugh. “Ironic, that Peril would probably be the best person to deal with something like this. And he’s the one who had to crash his damn bike. It’s fucking poetic, almost.”

He bites off a sigh. “I should go before Sanders comes for my head,” he mutters. “Well, after how I shouted at the press just now he’ll have my head anyway, but the longer I hide from him the worse he’ll make it.”

Gaby glares, but Napoleon gets the impression it’s not meant for him. “ _Idioten_ , the lot of them,” she grumbles. “I don’t think there’s a single team trainer who doesn’t need hitting around the head. Repeatedly.”

Napoleon snorts in amusement. “Yes, I believe most of us share that sentiment at times like this,” he says. “Anyway…let me know, when you hear something?” Gaby just nods, and Napoleon slips out the door before his hands start to shake again.

“Solo?” Gaby calls out just as he’s about to leave. Napoleon pauses in the doorway, looking back at her. He has to stare past the mangled remains of Illya’s bike, and only just manages to look at her and not the wreck of twisted metal.

“Thank you,” Gaby says, when he meets her gaze.

Napoleon just shrugs. “I wasn’t able to do anything,” he replies. Even saying it makes him feel sick. He should have been able to do more. He should have been able to do something, anything at all. He should have been better than just kneeling there, holding Illya’s hand.

“I didn’t mean that,” Gaby says. “Though that he had someone there…” She trails off, taking a breath, and Napoleon can see the steel in her spine as she looks back up at him. “Thank you for caring about him,” she says steadily. “Not many people here see him as much more than a decent cyclist. You might just have earnt my respect, Solo, for that.”

“Should I be honoured?” Napoleon asks.

“You should be careful,” Gaby says, and Napoleon actually believes her as she says it. “Illya is very important to me. Hurt him, and I promise you that he will have to hold me back from breaking you.” She glances past him, out the doorway. “You should get going before anyone sees you and the press try to get hold of you again.” She smiles, very briefly. “I heard about you not taking the yellow jersey tomorrow, by the way. Not at all what I would have expected from the infamous Napoleon Solo.”

“Maybe that person isn’t what you think,” Napoleon says quietly.

Gaby just nods. “I’ll see you around, Solo,” she says, and then she turns back to her work. Napoleon takes that as the clear dismissal that it is, and heads back out into the sunshine and the chaos of the Tour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings: aftermath of crash and characters generally not being okay with what has happened, including someone being physically sick._
> 
> Yep, Sanders is a dick. Already the crash is changing things: Gaby and Napoleon, the rivalry between the two teams, even Oleg. Poor Napoleon really isn't in the right place at the moment, which is why he tells Gaby that he knows Illya is gay. He only did that because he knows that she knows, but still, it's not great, and he only does it because his head is definitely not in the right place.
> 
> There is precedence for the leader of the Tour not wearing the yellow jersey for the first day when they've gained it through the previous leader crashing out, though the officials try to make them wear it for sponsorship reasons.
> 
> Napoleon shouting at the press was quite cathartic to write. I didn't realise until I'd written it, but it draws parallels to Princess Diana's death- when her car crashed, she was alive in the back of the car, and the paparazzi, instead of helping her, took photos. I won't get into the conspiracy theories surrounding her death, but pretty much everyone in the UK knows about her and her death. What Napoleon said to the press about crossing a line is quite reminiscent of the disgust in the UK at the paparazzi after her death.
> 
> Gaby and Napoleon aren't automatically best friends, but they're getting somewhere. There will be more aftermath in the next chapter.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More angst for Napoleon, I'm afraid, so pretty much the same warnings as last chapter apply. Poor Napoleon, he's still struggling a lot with the crash and what it means for them, but the effects of the crash are starting to show in the other riders and the other teams.
> 
> The Tour has officially started in real life, it's about five days in, so if this fic has made you interested then give the real thing a go! If you're new to the Tour, don't try and watch the entire stage, because they're long and can get quite boring- in the UK, they run an hour long highlights at the end of each day, which shows all the important parts of the race as well as some good commentary. Other countries probably have similar things.

He’s sitting in the Tour bus with ice packs across most of his right side when his phone buzzes. Napoleon ignores the looks he gets from the other teammates sitting with him as he scrambles for it, and his heart stutters when he reads the text that flashes up on the screen from an unknown number.

_Oleg is on phone to doctors now,_ it reads, and Napoleon ignores the bark of pain that tries to slip past his lips as he jumps to his feet. A couple of his teammates get up, but he slips past them. “I have to go,” he says, and is out the door before anyone can say anything.

Oleg is outside the Mercedes team bus, with what looks like most of the team gathered around him. He’s turned away from them all, a frown on his face as he listens to whatever doctor is on the other end. Gaby is standing to one side, and when she spots Napoleon she looks, if anything, more worried than before.

Napoleon doesn’t bother being sly, or being quiet. He just walks straight up to them and stands with the rest of the Mercedes team. “Has he said anything yet?” he asks, ignoring the looks he’s getting, the way a few people step closer to him, making aborted movements to grab him. A distant part of him wonders if it’s that obvious how unhinged he feels, if he’s lost that much control over his expression that it shows through how his heart is hammering in his chest.

Finally, Oleg hangs up, and turns to the team. A look crosses his face when he sees Napoleon standing there, some mixture of annoyance and resignation, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he pockets his phone slowly, and clears his throat.

“They’re optimistic,” he says slowly, and Napoleon feels like he can’t breathe.

“In short summary, he’s broken his arm, shattered a collarbone, bruised the entirety of his right side very badly, done some internal muscle damage, and has lacerations on his liver,” Oleg says, and for the first time, out of all the times Napoleon has ever heard him speak, his voice is soft. “There doesn’t look to be any spinal damage, thankfully, but the real damage is that he also has three broken ribs. One of them punctured his lung.” He has to stop, and take a breath. “His lung collapsed and was bleeding.” His gaze finds Napoleon’s. “That’s why he was choking on the road,” he says, his voice soft.

Napoleon isn’t sure who it is who groans at that, only that he has his hand pressed hard over his mouth to stop him doing the same. Oleg pauses, and takes another breath before he continues. “They’ve inflated his lung again, stopped the bleeding, and put in a tube to drain the fluid from his chest. They’re waiting to see if his liver will stop bleeding on its own, or if they need to do surgery tomorrow. Hopefully it will stop by itself.”

“Is he awake?” someone asks.

Oleg just shakes his head. “He’s…he’s on a ventilator to ease the pressure on his lung. He should be off it by tomorrow, if there aren’t any complications. But it is going to be a long recovery.” He steps back from them, and then walks away without another word.

The team break up, talking quietly amongst themselves. Someone has Gaby in a bear hug, pressing his face into her shoulder as she rubs his back. Napoleon can see his shoulders hitch, but he can’t hear anything. He drifts amongst them as he swallows the acrid bile in his throat, out of place amongst the silver jackets, until he sees a familiar face.

The cyclist is standing, hands in pockets, as he watches Napoleon approach. “It was you,” Napoleon says abruptly.

“Depends on what I did,” the cyclist offers, and now he’s closer, Napoleon recognises him as Antonio, one of the Mercedes _domestiques_ for the mountains. There’s a hint of a smirk on his lips, but it’s dampened heavily by the news they’d just received.

“You were the one to lead me back,” Napoleon says, forgoing his usual charm and smile. He can’t stand it, not right now. “You stopped and you lead me back to the front. It’s because of you I had a hope in hell of keeping my lead. Why the hell did you do that?”

Antonio shrugs, but Napoleon just stares him down, and his gaze drops to the ground. “We could hear you, you know,” he says quietly.

Napoleon blinks. “What?”

“Illya’s mic, it was…I don’t know, someone must have accidentally turned it on from back here, because it was transmitting. We could hear everything he was saying.” Antonio breathes out. “We could hear everything you were saying, as well.”

Napoleon doesn’t know what to say. He barely remembers what he’d said to Illya on the road, beside frantically telling him over and over that it was going to be okay. Now, even thinking about the lie makes him feel sick. He remembers quite clearly what Illya had said, every moment he’d been there with him on the road, but his own words blur out of existence when compared to each gasping breath Illya had struggled for.

“You were there for him, Solo,” Antonio says quietly. “When it matters, you were there, and instead of getting on a bike and continuing, you knelt next to him and you tried to comfort him on that road. That means something to us.” He shrugs. “Besides, we heard Illya tell you to take the win, and us mere _domestiques_ have to bow to the whims of our leader. Oleg can give me hell for it all he likes, but I did the right thing.”

Napoleon finds his voice. “Thank you,” he says, and he means it. Antonio just shakes his head.

“This makes us even, Solo,” he says softly, and then he turns and walks away.

0-o-0-o-0

The next morning, every paper has the same photo on the front page of the sports section. When Napoleon goes to check the news on his phone, there are text messages and notifications flooding in. Already twenty people have sent him the picture, accompanied by various frenzied writing. He deletes all the texts without reading them, and it’s only the thought that Gaby could text him about Illya that stops him turning his phone off and throwing it in some corner of the bus for the rest of the Tour.

Sanders slaps a newspaper down in front of him at breakfast, where Napoleon is trying to ignore the aches in his body long enough to eat. “We’re trying to get hold of the photographer and get the papers to pull it, but it’s too late for a lot of them,” he says quietly. “I’m all for a free press, but sometimes they take it too damn far.”

Napoleon hums, more so that Sanders will leave than in actual agreement. He can’t quite look away from the photo, now that he sees it up close.

He remembers there being a lot more blood than he can see now.

Some photographer just happened to be in the right place at the right time to get the million-dollar shot, he thinks bitterly. The photo is of him, knelt over Illya on the road. There’s scrapes all down his one arm visible in the photo, and he can see enough of Illya to see the blood across his face, the tears in that damn yellow jersey, the darker parts of the tarmac that Napoleon knows were blood, even if it’s not easily visible from the photo. Illya is gripping his jersey, pulling him down, and he has one hand covering Illya’s on the jersey and the other cupping Illya’s cheek.

Napoleon bites the inside of his cheek as he remembers Illya trying to move his head, the frantic flash of fear that had shot through him at the thought that Illya had damaged his back or neck, that moving would make everything so much worse. He can see the panic in his face, the wide eyes and parted mouth, and the longer he stares at the photo the more it throws him. Somehow, he doesn’t think it looks like him.

He can only see the side of Illya’s face in the photo, but it’s enough to make out the bright red blood that has run down from the corner of his lip, a droplet frozen in time as it snakes across his jaw towards the road. There’s not enough of Illya’s face to see his expression, and Napoleon is glad of that. He doesn’t think he’s embellishing the fear that he remembers had been on Illya’s face as he had choked and struggled for breath, at least not much, and he’s glad it’s been kept out of the papers.

His phone buzzes, and he just glances at the screen, expecting another message about the photo. Instead he sees Gaby’s name flash up, and he almost flinches.

_Doctors called_ , it reads. _He’s still asleep. Might wake up tomorrow or maybe tonight if no complications._

Napoleon’s thumbs hover over the screen of his phone. _Good,_ he texts back eventually. _Thanks._

Gaby’s already typing when he responds, and her next message comes through in only a few seconds. _Have you seen the photo?_

_Ofc,_ Napoleon replies immediately. _Not v flattering._

_Oleg is trying to get it pulled_ , Gaby texts. _No luck so far._

_Same with Sanders,_ Napoleon writes. _Too late now. Not too bad for him tho. Can’t see most of his face._

There’s a long pause from Gaby. _Is that a good thing?_ she writes eventually, and Napoleon grimaces.

It takes him a minute to type out his response and not just yell at his phone. _He couldn’t breathe_ , he writes to her. _Ofc he was fucking panicking. I don’t want press getting hold of pic of that._

Gaby doesn’t respond, and Napoleon wonders briefly if he pushed a little too far, but it’s nothing compared to the mass of words and intangible things that is sitting in his throat, begging to be spoken. He barely resists typing something else, and he doesn’t know if it would have been an apology or whatever else he’s struggling to control and keep from speaking.

Sanders spends most of the morning bullying him around as they get ready for the stage, pushing him onto a warmup bike, shoving strategy plans at him and the _domestiques_ until Napoleon honestly doesn’t have any idea what they’re meant to be doing today other than pedalling. He figures that if it goes wrong, someone will shout at him over the radios and then the _domestiques_ will follow whatever orders they are given. As long as he stays on the bike, he doesn’t care.

The stage feels strange. They’re out of the mountains now, the stage more for the sprinters than anyone else. All Napoleon has to do is be in the front group, letting the sprinters do their own thing at the finish, and not lose any time to any of the other leaders who aren’t really threatening him now anyway. But still, the stage feels wrong. He keeps looking over his shoulder, expecting Illya to be sitting right on his wheel. He keeps seeing the silver of Mercedes shirts and turning to them before realising that Illya isn’t amongst them, that Illya is lying in a coma in a hospital, broken and hurt and alone. Every time he thinks he’s realised that Illya isn’t here, every time he thinks he’s able to just concentrate on the race, he sees a flash of a silver jersey and he’s blindsided by it all over again.

The stage ends, even though Napoleon barely notices it happening, and he’s pulled off his bike and pushed off towards the team bus before he even knows what is happening. When he gets his breathing back enough to actually think of anything other than breathing, he stops short and shakes off Sander’s grip.

“Are you that terrified I’m going to run off?” he snaps at him. “Give me a fucking break, Sanders. I do have some investment in this damn race.”

“No, I want to get you away from the press,” Sanders snaps back. “We can’t risk you running your mouth like that again.”

Napoleon’s lip curls. “You know everything I said was true, and you know that all of the riders here agree with me. Someone should have said it.” He can see the press beginning to gather in the edges of his vision, though so far, they’ve refrained from coming too close. It’s enough to make him give in to Sanders and head for the team bus, and the cool down bikes next to it.

“Is there any news on Illya?” he asks as he cools down, another water bottle being pressed into his hand. A couple of the other teammates look up at his question, but say nothing.

Sanders checks his phone. “The press is blowing up all over this, insisting he’s at death’s door,” he says, and Napoleon’s heart briefly wraps itself around his throat at that. Sanders seems indifferent. “Oleg hasn’t said anything to me, but the last time I talked to him was this morning. I’ve been slightly preoccupied with trying to keep you in that damn jersey today, even if you’re not even wearing it right now because you’re a damn fool.”

“So you don’t know anything more than you did yesterday,” Napoleon says flatly. He turns from Sanders, looking for the closest Alfa Romeo official. “Can you get me my phone?” he asks her. “It should be in the bus.”

Napoleon stops pedalling, ignoring Sanders’ protests, and waits for her to come out the bus and hand his phone over. He scrolls through the meaningless texts and chatter until he finally sees Gaby’s name.

_He’s out of the coma,_ it just reads. Napoleon takes a breath, feels it enter his lungs, and is still unprepared for the sheer relief that thrums through him for a moment. He gets off the bike, shoving past Sanders even as he snaps at him. The silver of the Mercedes bus is down the road, and Napoleon can see Oleg pacing outside, talking to the teammates cooling down on their bikes. Their sprinter is amongst them, wearing the green jersey and chatting to Oleg, but he falls quiet when he sees Napoleon approaching.

Oleg turns, sees him, and rolls his eyes. “Slipped your leash?” he asks. “I’m sure your handler is going to come running for you soon enough. Sanders is thorough, at least.”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, Oleg,” Napoleon snaps. “You know perfectly well why I’m here. Illya is out of the coma, right? Is he awake?”

“Oh, is the press not spinning their narrative of the poor cyclist at death’s door still?” Oleg asks. “Last I looked, someone had already tried to declare him dead.” Napoleon tries hard not to flinch at that, but something must show on his face, because for a brief moment, Oleg looks almost pitying. “He’s awake, Solo,” he says. “Maybe not right now, they have him on a fair number of painkillers, but he’s out of the coma. Well before the doctors said he would be as well, but then I suppose that’s Illya for you. He’ll be okay.”

Napoleon can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, and Oleg arches a brow. “Now you’ve found whatever catharsis you’re looking for, perhaps you could leave my team alone?” he asks. “You’ve got your yellow jersey now.”

“Do you honestly think that is what this is about?” Napoleon snaps. A couple of the team look up, and Napoleon forces his voice to be lower. “Did you not see me after the crash?” he hisses at Oleg. “I was there, I knelt beside him on the fucking road and held his fucking hand as he struggled to breathe! Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I don’t care, Oleg. I had his blood on my hands. Of course I fucking care.”

Oleg looks sincere for a very brief moment, before his usual scowl returns. “Look,” Napoleon says, reigning in the temper that’s roiling beneath his skin. “I just want to know that he’s okay. Does he…will he be okay there, alone? It won’t…I don’t know, trigger anything?”

Oleg arches a brow. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” he replies. “You can go back to your own team now.” He brushes past Napoleon.

Napoleon doesn’t quite know why he does, but he reaches out and grabs Oleg’s arm. “Look,” he hisses. “I know he was in the army. I know about the PTSD, or combat fatigue, or whatever you call it, okay? I know a lot more than you think I do, and I want to know if Illya is going to be okay in that hospital. That’s all.”

Oleg actually looks surprised, and there’s a fleeting flash of vindication that makes Napoleon’s lip curl. “Your cyclists aren’t on as short a leash as you’d like to think,” he snaps at him. “And Illya is a better person than you will ever know.”

“He’ll be fine,” Oleg says eventually, and Napoleon doesn’t think he’s imagining the grudging respect in Oleg’s voice. “The doctors know about his PTSD. They’re trained to deal with this, better than you could do. Now, leave me and my team alone. Go back to your own people.”

Napoleon holds up his hands. “Fine,” he says. “But tell me if anything changes. Anything at all.” He sees the reluctance in Oleg’s face, and sighs. “Will nobody believe me when I say I just want to know he’s going to be okay? There are no ulterior motives, for God’s sake! I’m just worried.”

“Still means you need to go back to your own team, Solo,” Oleg snaps. “Go on, before Sanders yanks at your leash too hard and rips that damn jersey off your back.”

Napoleon stalks away. He gets halfway towards the Alfa Romeo bus when someone grips his shoulder. Flinching at both the sudden movement and the pain from the road rash across his shoulders, Napoleon turns to see Kuznetsov, the Mercedes sprinter, standing behind him with a hand outstretched. “What do you want?” he asks.

“To talk to you for a minute,” Kuznetsov says simply. “Before the press see us and have a fit, at least.” He sticks his hands in his pockets. “Are you okay?”

Napoleon stares at him. There’s a spiteful response on the tip of his tongue, but the simplicity of the question makes him swallow it. “Not really,” he gets out. “But then none of us ever are on this damn Tour. I’ll cope.” He shrugs, ignoring the pain that comes with the movement, and tries not to think of the crash. It’s not easy.

Kuznetsov nods. “Yeah, I’m sure you will,” he says quietly.

Napoleon feels like he should say something. “How are you?” is all he comes up with. “How is…how’s the team?”

“Do you really care?” Kuznetsov asks. A moment later, he winces. “Sorry, that was unfair. We’re okay. It’s things like this that make you see that Oleg actually is a good trainer. Anyone else would have a hell of a time holding us all together, but he glares at us once and we all shut up and get on with our jobs.” He pauses, glancing over his shoulder.

“Look, we both know I didn’t just stop you for a mindless chat,” he says when Napoleon doesn’t say anything else. “But with Illya in hospital, apparently I’m the leader of this team. And since Oleg won’t ever say anything sincere to you, I wanted to say thank you. For what you did for Illya.”

It wasn’t enough, Napoleon knows that, but he nods anyway. “Anyone else would have done the same,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else he can say.

“They wouldn’t have, but if you don’t want to talk about it, then fine,” Kuznetsov replies. He stares at the ground for a moment. “The rest of the boys won’t say anything, because of this stupid rivalry between our two teams,” he adds, “but when you announced you wouldn’t take the yellow jersey yesterday, that meant a lot to all of us. That you did that out of respect for Illya. We know it must have pissed Sanders off a lot.”

“That’s an understatement,” Napoleon mutters. Kuznetsov laughs, the smile making him suddenly look much younger.

“Well, if you can’t piss of your trainer with every second of your existence, then what’s even the point of this Tour?” he asks. “Regardless, we’re all grateful. I’m grateful. I’ve known Illya for years now, and he’s a good friend.” He looks haggard for a moment. “I really thought this was going to be his year,” he murmurs. He shakes his head, and the expression disappears. “Anyway, because nobody else in this team is going to say it, thank you.” He holds out his hand.

Napoleon can hear the cameras going off behind them as he reaches out and takes Kuznetsov’s hand. “I really wish this hadn’t happened,” he says quietly. “No matter what the press made of that stupid rivalry, no matter how much I want the jersey. I would give a lot to see him back here.”

Kuznetsov looks thoughtful, and Napoleon wonders if he said too much. “I should go before Sanders actually kills me,” he says. “I’ll see you on the road tomorrow.”

“Don’t think we’ll go easy on you, just because you’ve got a clean shot to the jersey,” Kuznetsov says, with a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “We’ve got to uphold Illya’s reputation.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Napoleon admits. He has nothing left to say, now, so he turns and walks away, back to the Alfa Romeo bus. The press hound him until he steps inside, but he evades them without really thinking about it. He’s got more important things on his mind right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I really like about the Tour, what I loved writing in this story, is the respect that the cyclists have for each other. Ultimately, they're probably the only ones who understand the drive a cyclist has to win, the commitment that it takes, the sacrifices made. Antonio gave Napoleon a lead after the crash, even though they are on teams that should hate each other, because he respects what Napoleon did for Illya. That teamwork, between people who should be rivals, is wonderful to watch in the real Tour, and I had to include it here as well.
> 
> Oleg has been consistently surprised by Napoleon over the past few chapters, and he maybe, just maybe, is actually starting to care.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Illya finally comes back! This chapter is a self-indulgent mish-mash of tropes and angst, and I'm sure you'll all love it.
> 
> Before you scroll down and start reading, open up a tab on YouTube and listen to this song of Springsteen's whilst you read, [Racing in the Streets](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOWIAXsfZus). It's the song that accompanies this chapter, without a doubt.

The world is a haze.

He thinks he almost would prefer it to be clear, and put up with the relentless pain in his side, the deep ache of his arm beneath the plaster cast. He’s always hated the weird haze that comes with morphine.

The tv across the room is on, switched to the live coverage of the Tour, but he can’t see that far away to make out the individual riders beyond their jersey colours. The Mercedes team is easy to spot, the silver ingrained into him from wearing that colour for so long. The green jersey sits in their midst, and there’s a brief satisfaction that shoves through the haze long enough for him to be pleased for Vitaly, that he’s managed to hang onto the green jersey. Alfa Romeo is unmistakeable, their black and red jerseys far more stylish than any of the others on the road. A moment later, he grimaces at those thoughts. It’s harder to hang onto any one thought under this haze of morphine.

Napoleon is impossible not to see, even with the blur of morphine. He thinks he should feel bitter about it, that the yellow jersey now belongs to someone else, but somehow he can’t quite find it within him to hate Napoleon for it. If anything, he’s glad that Napoleon has it, and not someone else. Napoleon deserves it.

He cuts those trailing thoughts off before they derail entirely. There is no point hoping for what cannot happen. Napoleon is busy winning the Tour, and he is busy doing nothing in hospital. He doesn’t think that Napoleon has time to come and see him in hospital, especially as the Tour moves away and closer to Paris every day.

He drifts, for a while, through nurses coming in and checking on the various lines and tubes currently connected to his body. He distantly thinks that if he were on less potent drugs, he might be bothered by that. They try and talk to him in a mixture of French and broken English, and he tries to understand, but the painkillers make them sound like they’re underwater, and his mind can’t translate fast enough.

It must have been hours when the door opens again, and a nurse comes in. The drugs have worn off enough for him to be just that little more together, and he knows the nurses aren’t due to come in again for a while now. He frowns at her, trying to drag the scattered pieces of his brain together enough to translate a question.

She beats him to it. “There’s someone here to see you, Kuryakin,” she says, first in French and then again in English. “He is quite…determined. Do you feel up to a visitor?”

He’s about to ask who it is when the door opens. He stares at the figure in the doorway, and the nurse blushes. “We can kick him out if you want,” she murmurs to him. “Just say the word.”

Illya stares at Napoleon, who seems frozen in the doorway. “No,” he says eventually. “Is okay.” The nurse looks sceptical, but leaves, shutting the door behind her and pushing Napoleon into the room.

“Cowboy,” Illya says, his voice scratching in his throat. “Why are you here?”

Napoleon seems to flinch, and takes a step closer to the bed. “Illya,” he murmurs, looking everywhere but at Illya’s face. “God, Peril, what the hell have you done to yourself?”

“Not my fault,” Illya mutters. “Cowboy. Why are you here?”

Napoleon stutters closer to the bed, a few more feet but still tantalisingly out of reach. “I…can’t I see if you’re okay?” he asks, a sharp note to his voice. “Do I have to defend myself to you as well?”

Illya frowns. “What…Cowboy,” he says slowly. “I don’t understand. You’re…you’re riding in stage today.” He glances at the tv, where he can clearly see the yellow jersey on the screen, clearly see the graceful riding that he just knows is Napoleon’s style.

Napoleon follows his gaze, and suddenly starts laughing. Illya frowns again, feeling like he’s missing out on something. He must make some sort of noise, because Napoleon turns back to him, a real grin on his face for a second. “It’s a rest day, Peril,” he says. “That’s replay. Not even yesterday’s, actually, because I didn’t wear the jersey yesterday. You must be on a hell of a lot of painkillers.”

Illya takes a minute to translate everything, and Napoleon’s expression softens. “Sorry,” he says. “It must be a bitch trying to translate that all.” He sighs, and then the next words out of his mouth are abruptly in Russian. “Please don’t laugh at my accent.”

Illya stares at him. “It is…not as bad as I thought it would be,” he says, also in Russian, and Napoleon laughs. Illya can’t help but smile at the sound, but abruptly Napoleon’s laugh turns into an ugly sob. Illya watches as Napoleon presses a hand to his mouth, turning away from him for a long moment as his shoulders shake.

“God, Peril,” he says once he gets control over his voice. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Napoleon,” Illya says quietly, and without thinking about it he holds out his hand. Napoleon’s expression crumples. He crosses the room without hesitation, pulling up a chair and grabbing hold of Illya’s hand. He slumps on the edge of the bed, pressing his forehead to Illya’s hand. A muffled sob escapes his lips, and Illya just watches helplessly as Napoleon’s breath hitches, and he presses his face into the blanket on the bed. Illya wants to do something, wants to comfort him somehow, but any words he could say are rusted and empty. He just watches, still gripping Napoleon’s hand, as Napoleon shatters quietly in the chair next to his bed.

Eventually Napoleon’s breathing evens out. He clears his throat, and sits up. “Sorry,” he mutters, still in Russian. He doesn’t look at Illya’s face. “You didn’t need that.”

“You did,” Illya replies. He squeezes Napoleon’s hand, and Napoleon stares at their joined hands for a long moment. “Cowboy,” Illya says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m doing better than you,” Napoleon replies automatically, a familiar spark back in his voice. It only lasts a second, though, and then Napoleon’s smile dims to nothing again. “I’m fine,” he says softly. “Bruised and battered, that’s all. I’m much more worried about you.”

Illya shrugs, and pain ricochets through him at the movement. He freezes, his chest seizing as he tries to breath without it hurting more, and squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them, Napoleon is up on his feet, leaning over him. “Illya,” he’s saying. “Illya. Just breathe, okay, just breathe through it. You’re going to be fine.”

Illya takes a cautious breath, and looks over at him. Even the tilt of his head is enough to spark a dull ache through his ribs. “I know,” he rasps. “It is pain, Cowboy, nothing more. I can manage.”

Napoleon’s lips twist in a grimace, and he sinks back into his chair. “I’d really rather you didn’t have to,” he says. “I just…God, Illya, I don’t even know what to say.”

“You could give me my hand back,” Illya murmurs. “I like having fingers.”

Napoleon flinches, and looks down to where he’s still gripping Illya’s hand hard enough to make his fingers white. “Sorry,” he says, letting go of Illya’s hand. Illya grabs hold of it before he can fully pull it away, and Napoleon stares at him for a long moment.

Illya frowns as something suddenly occurs to him. “How did you get here?” he asks. “Oleg wouldn’t tell you anything about me, even if you begged.”

Napoleon’s lips twist in a wry smile. “You underestimate how messed up I was after the crash,” he says. “I came this close to just punching Sanders in the face, and Oleg wasn’t too far behind.” Illya tries not to laugh at that, because he knows it will hurt, and just about manages it. Napoleon grins for a second. “Your Gaby kept me informed,” he says. “Texted me whenever there was an update. I bullied my way into everything else.”

“Bullying isn’t your style,” Illya says. “Didn’t you flirt your way into this room?”

Napoleon grimaces again. “Let’s just say I wasn’t quite in the right mind for that,” he says. “God, Illya, you have no idea. I was a fucking mess.”

Illya frowns at him. “That isn’t how you say that in Russian,” he says, and Napoleon rolls his eyes.

“Priorities,” he tells him. “Priorities, Peril. The least important thing right now is how terrible my Russian is.” Illya just gives him a look, and he grins. “I know, I’m bastardising your language. Just put up with it for now, because there’s no way you can translate that easily on that many painkillers.”

“How is Gaby?” Illya asks. “Have you seen her?” He thinks he remembers talking to her on the phone, thinks he can remembering hearing her voice nearly crack as she berates him in fierce German and tells him how worried she was in the same breath, but everything is hazy and vague, and it’s not the same as seeing her.

“She’s holding it together pretty well,” Napoleon says. “She’s a terrifying woman when she wants to be, Peril.” Illya just nods, and Napoleon cracks a smile. “She’ll be okay. She seems like a ferociously strong woman.” He pauses, and the smile disappears from his face. “I should tell you though…”

“What have you done,” Illya says flatly.

Napoleon looks guilty, and stares at the blanket on the bed. “Nobody was telling me what was happening to you,” he says. “I think Sanders thought I was looking for attention and drama, and Oleg…I was very far down on his list. Gaby wouldn’t trust me at first, wouldn’t believe that I didn’t have some ulterior motive or something. I had to find some way to make her trust me enough to tell me what was going on, and I was completely out of my mind. I didn’t…the only thing I could think of telling her was…” He clears his throat. “Well, I told her I knew you were gay. We were on our own, nobody could have overheard us, but still, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry, Peril.”

Illya frowns at him, and waits until Napoleon meets his gaze. “I understand, Cowboy,” he says softly, and is rewarded with a moment of slack-jawed surprise on Napoleon’s face. He gently squeezes Napoleon’s hand. “I understand,” he repeats. “And…I trust you. I know you wouldn’t…you just wouldn’t.”

Napoleon’s face crumples slightly, and he clears his throat. “I’m still sorry,” he murmurs. “I panicked. I…fuck, Illya, I knelt next to you on the road back there. There was so much blood. You couldn’t breathe. I still can’t get over that.”

Illya tries to shrug without moving. “I will be okay, Cowboy,” he says softly. “Eventually.” Napoleon is still fighting hard to control his expression, lips pressed together in a thin line to stop them trembling, and Illya’s thoughts stutter to a stop. “Stop it,” he says without really meaning to, watching Napoleon try to stop himself from shattering into pieces again. “Napoleon. Stop it. I don’t know what to do.”

Napoleon lets out a broken laugh. “Jesus, Peril,” he mutters, running a hand over his face. “You don’t…I don’t even know what to say to that. None of this is your fault, especially not my tired brain being too emotional at times.” He takes a breath, and rubs at his eyes. “I’m fine,” he mutters. “I’m much more worried about you.”

“Doctors say I’ll recover,” Illya says. He remembers them saying something like that, remembers Oleg on the phone at some point. They let him have his phone back yesterday, though half the time he’s in too much of a haze to read anything on it. “And Oleg has agreed to take me back onto team when I’m better, make me lead if Weber doesn’t come back from his broken leg. I have two more offers from other teams as well. I’m going to be okay.”

“Well, someone is popular,” Napoleon remarks. “Are you going to take any of them? Move away from Oleg and Mercedes?”

“I don’t know,” Illya just says. “Maybe. I owe Oleg so much, and to ride at head of Mercedes…” He trails off. “I don’t know.” He thinks that he’s only so calm about this because of the amounts of drugs in his system right now. When he’s a little better, he’s sure he’ll panic over this, over the way his life is splitting into a thousand different directions. Just with Napoleon sitting here at his bedside, holding onto his hand, there’s the cliff edge of a possibility lingering at his feet.

“I was jealous,” he says abruptly, without meaning to. His thoughts just took over and spilled from his lips without him thinking about saying them, and it’s too late now. Napoleon arches a brow, looking at him with that edge to his gaze that Illya has learnt to equate with his insatiable curiosity by now.

“Oh?” he says. “Of what?”

Illya tries to organise the words into some semblance of sense in his head before his lips betray him and spill them anyway. “I couldn’t read about you, in the news,” he says at first. “I just…every time I saw you, I saw what you had, and I…couldn’t stand it, I guess.” Napoleon arches a brow again, and Illya drops his gaze. “You were out,” he explains. “You were…you had what I wanted, you were being yourself, and I was jealous. So, I hated you. It was easier than admitting it to myself.”

Napoleon huffs a bare laugh. “I think you’re only telling me this because you’re on quite a lot of drugs,” he says. He smooths his thumb across the back of Illya’s hand, the type of absent-minded gesture Illya never thought he would be able to have, and for a few moments it’s all he can do to stare at Napoleon’s hand holding his. “I understand, Peril,” Napoleon says softly. “I suppose that’s part of the reason why we got off to such a bad start in this Tour.”

“Well, you were also unbearably arrogant,” Illya points out, and Napoleon lets out a startled laugh.

“Tell it like it is, why don’t you,” he says as he laughs. “To be fair, I was pretty pissed off at you for snatching that jersey out from under my nose. We set each other off, I think, at the beginning.”

“You turned everything into innuendos,” Illya feels compelled to point out. “Everything, Cowboy. It is impossible.”

“Yeah, well it was impossible to make you crack even the slightest hint of a smile,” Napoleon replies. “So of course I had to keep trying.” He squeezes Illya’s hand. “I got there eventually, didn’t I?”

“You could have just spoken in Russian with your horrible accent,” Illya points out, and Napoleon laughs. This time it doesn’t turn into a sob, his lips don’t twist in a grimace. Illya looks at him, really looks at him, able to push aside the haze of the drugs for a few moments. “You look tired,” he says. “Not just from the Tour. Really tired.”

Napoleon runs a hand through his hair, and shrugs. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “But what can you do? This Tour has been a... clusterfuck, I think is the right word, though I don’t know how to translate that one into Russian, from beginning to end.”

“Hasn’t ended yet,” Illya points out. “But you have, what, over a minute on everyone else? There’s no way you could-”

Napoleon shushes him. “You must be on a hell of a lot of drugs to try and jinx everything like that,” he says, but Illya doesn’t think he’s mistaking the fondness in his voice. “Still have six days to go before riding into Paris. Anything could happen.”

Illya scoffs. “You will be riding down les Champs-Élysées with champagne in hand,” he says. “And you know it. It was always going to be one of us, since the first day of the Tour.”

Napoleon sighs. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’m just saying this because, well, you’re here in hospital and obviously not going to win the Tour this year, but…” He looks away from Illya, across to the tv and the replay of yesterday’s stage. “I think you would have won.”

“You’re just saying that because I’m here in hospital and obviously not going to win the Tour this year,” Illya parrots back at him flatly. “You have no way of knowing that.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “You don’t think I know how the Tour works?” he asks. “In a two-man race like ours was, the person ahead in the mountains almost always wins the Tour if they see it all the way through. I may be good. I may be brilliant,” and at that, Illya scoffs. Napoleon rolls his eyes. “But I know my limits. And I’m pretty good at judging other people’s as well. I think you would have kept me off your tail long enough to win.”

Illya just shakes his head, suppressing a wince at the flare of pain that skitters up his spine and flattens out across his chest. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?” he mutters. “Like you said, I’m here. I can’t win. No point thinking about what I could have had.” He levels Napoleon with a look. “Don’t try to flatter me, or patronise me just because you know you’re going to win and you feel sorry for me.”

Napoleon winces. “Fuck,” he mutters. He runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t even realise I was doing that.” He grimaces, and leans forwards, tugging his hand free from Illya’s to rest his face in his hands. “Fuck,” he says again. “This is…this has gone beyond my fucking pay grade. I can ride a bike. I can even be vaguely competent when it comes to art history and writing a dissertation. I can’t deal with all of this.” He looks utterly miserable when he looks back up at Illya. “Everyone expects me to just go back to the Tour and win that jersey like nothing has happened, like you didn’t nearly die on that road.”

Illya just hums, and Napoleon bites off a curse. “I don’t know what to do,” he murmurs, and he sounds wrecked. “I just…I don’t know what to do.”

Illya can’t help but reach out. His palm cups Napoleon’s jaw, thumb falling just shy of the corner of his lips. “Win the Tour,” he says quietly, and Napoleon’s gaze flicks to him, something not quite decipherable in his expression. “Get the jersey,” Illya says. “And then…” He trails off. “What comes later will come later.”

Napoleon smiles slightly. “Somehow you don’t strike me as the type of person to just say that,” he murmurs. “I would have thought you’d have a plan. Several plans. And contingencies.”

“It’s the drugs,” Illya says dryly. “I’ll worry later.” Napoleon huffs the barest of laughs, dropping his head briefly.

Illya frowns as he sees a sliver of silver chain around Napoleon’s neck, revealed as his collar shifts. He reaches for it, snagging it on a finger and tugging. “What is this?” he asks.

“Oh, just some old thing,” Napoleon says, pulling the rest of the chain out from around his neck. There’s a small pendant on the end of it, a little circle of burnished copper. He rubs his thumb across it without seemingly realising he’s doing it. “Doesn’t have much significance. I picked it up as a kid at some yard sale, stole it when the man’s back was turned. There was an engraving on it, but it’s mostly rubbed off over time. I like to think it was a passing resemblance to one of the depictions of Laverna, the Roman goddess of thieves and cheats, but then that’s probably me being fanciful.”

“Why do you wear it, then?” Illya asks, and Napoleon shrugs.

“Sentimentality?” he suggests. “Reminds me that there’s still a scared kid somewhere in my past? I don’t know. I just don’t really take it off.”

Illya nods, and acutely feels the absence of a watch on his wrist, more so than during this entire Tour. He knows it’s safe in his bag on the team bus, but still. He understands what it is to carry a shade of someone else around in an item. He runs the chain through his fingers until he can smooth his thumb across the little pendant, the cooper warm where it had resting against Napoleon’s chest.

Napoleon reaches up, and his own hand covers Illya’s. “You had me so worried,” he murmurs. “Watching you on that road, and then having to wait, with no idea what was happening to you…” He trails off, gaze going distant in a way that Illya recognises from his long years in the army, and Illya nudges him before Napoleon becomes too lost. Napoleon blinks and breathes out slowly. “Please don’t do this again,” he just says.

“Not planning to, Cowboy,” Illya says. “Too many tubes in my body for my liking right now.” Napoleon winces at that, and glances at the machines beside the bed. Illya follows his gaze, but he is more used to the sight of such things after more than one spell in hospital during the army, and whatever menace such machines once had has long since faded. Napoleon can seem to only look at them for a few moments before turning away. Illya catches his jaw with one hand. “I will mend,” he says quietly. “The machines are just that. Machines. They’re not evil.”

“They look it,” Napoleon mutters, glaring at them, and Illya scoffs. There’s a weak smile that flits across Napoleon’s face at that, and he opens his mouth to say something. Before the words quite make it out, the door opens and a nurse walks in.

“You need to leave now, Sir,” she says. “We have more checks to run, and your friend outside is growing impatient.”

“He’s not my friend,” Napoleon mutters. Illya arches a brow, and he shrugs. “I bullied Sanders into letting me come and see you,” he explains. “Flat out refused to do any press unless they let me come. One of the conditions was that a Tour official drove me here and waited outside.” He grimaces. “He isn’t the most…pleasing of people.”

“Sir,” the nurse repeats, sounding bored. “You need to leave now, please.”

Napoleon glances at her but makes no move to get up. “I…I don’t know that I’ll be able to come again before the Tour is over,” he tells Illya. “I had a hard enough time getting Sanders to let me come today. And then we’ll probably be going separate ways once it’s finished. But…” His lips quirk in a crooked smile. “I’ll find you,” he says. “I promise you that.”

“My phone is on side,” Illya says, wincing as he turns his head to look at the little table. “Put your number in it. That makes it easier.” Napoleon huffs a laugh, but does as he says.

“There,” he says, putting the phone back on the side. “And the nurse is really glaring at me now, so I should probably go.” He gathers his jacket, and then suddenly pauses as he sticks his hand in a pocket. “Oh! I nearly forgot.” Illya watches as he pulls out an iPod, and a small speaker set.

“Trying to make me like Springsteen, Cowboy?” Illya asks dryly.

“I know that hospitals can get very boring,” Napoleon says, placing both on the table. “Especially when you are on so many drugs that it’s nauseating to read anything. That’s my old iPod. It has almost all of Springsteen’s good tracks on it, along with anything else I like. There are some old audiobooks as well. I made a playlist for you, of things you might like.” He taps the iPod, his fingers drumming on the table. “Let me know what you think.”

“Napoleon,” Illya says softly, and he holds out his hand. Napoleon doesn’t hesitate before taking it. “I’ll listen,” he tells him. “Promise. But you should go. You have yellow jersey to win.”

“He’ll be fine, Sir,” the nurse says dryly. “You don’t need to worry.” Illya huffs a laugh, and Napoleon rolls his eyes.

“Okay, I get the point,” he mutters. He squeezes Illya’s hand, and then before Illya can even react, bends down and presses a kiss to Illya’s forehead. “Sorry,” he mutters, staring down at Illya. “I…I shouldn’t have done that.”

Illya reaches up, his fingers trailing Napoleon’s jaw. “Go win jersey, Cowboy,” he says softly. “I’ll be okay.”

Napoleon nods, untangles his fingers from Illya’s, and reluctantly leaves. The nurse shuts the door behind him. “Your man is very scared for you,” she tells him in broken English as she checks the various machines around the bed. “Face was white when he came in.” She glances at him, a small smile on her face. “You take care of him, yes?”

“Don’t…you can’t tell anyone,” Illya says quickly. “It’s not…” He trails off when the nurse just smiles sympathetically, and nods.

“It’s okay, my dear,” she says. “I won’t say a word.” She smiles at him and pats his arm. “You look after him, though. He’s one to keep.”

“I know,” Illya just says. He glances over at the iPod and speaker Napoleon has left. It’s an effort, and leaves him sparking with pain across his chest, but eventually he gets the iPod in his hands and unlocks it. Right at the top, apparently the last thing that Napoleon looked at, is a playlist. _Land of Hope and Dreams_ is the title, and Illya remembers leaning on a balcony in the middle of the night, Napoleon next to him, only the two of them and the possibility of mountains beyond the darkness.

There’s a curl to his lips, a slight smile on his face, as he opens the playlist and hits shuffle. There’s a piano, and then a low murmur of a voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Tonight, tonight, the strip's just right_  
>  Out of my way mister, you best keep  
> Cause summer's here, and the time's just right  
> To go racing in the streets 
> 
> I wasn't lying when I said this chapter was self-indulgent. I loved writing this chapter, I really did. Poor Illya is on a lot of drugs at the moment, but he's finally starting to realise what he might be able to have with Napoleon. Whether that excites or terrifies him, you won't find out until he is on less painkillers and able to think more rationally.
> 
> Poor Napoleon as well, he's still suffering. This visit has helped him, though, and he's starting to heal now.
> 
> Also, forehead kisses!! They're getting closer every time!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have had a very busy week- exam results on Tuesday, which meant I spent all of Monday a nervous wreck whilst at work, and then work has been very busy the past few days, and I've been out after work pretty much every day. Went kayaking today with friends and fell in the river, which was fun!
> 
> I'm away this weekend, so this is the last chapter until next week. Hope you enjoy!

Sanders screams at him for fifteen minutes straight when he gets back to the town that the Tour has stopped in for the rest day, but Napoleon knows it was worth it to see Illya. He tunes Sanders out, half an ear listening for any keywords that mean he needs to start paying attention, and thinks about nothing.

Eventually Sanders runs out of steam, and Napoleon just stares at him. “If you’re quite finished,” he says, “then I am going to go and sit in front of the reporters so they don’t bleed me dry tomorrow. I am going to talk to the rest of the team and the physios and everyone else I need to talk to, and review all the things I need to for tomorrow’s stage.” He pauses, more to reign in the ice cold fury flooding through his veins than anything else. He stares Sanders down. “And if you ever, _ever_ , shout at me like that again for daring to care about a member of another team,” he adds, keeping his voice low so that he doesn’t completely lose control of it, “then I will walk off this fucking team.”

There’s a brief surge of vindication when he sees the surprise on Sanders’ face, even if it’s quickly reigned in. “I built you up, Solo,” Sanders spits at him. “I made you.”

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit,” Napoleon snaps. “I’m not going to give you some tale of how I made myself, how I got myself here, because you won’t fucking believe it, and that doesn’t matter to me anyway. But I can do what I damn well please, and if that means cutting my losses and walking away to find another team, then I will do it. Hell, half the people on this team would follow me, if I asked.”

Sanders blanches at that, but Napoleon can’t even find it within himself to let smile at it, to do anything but try and keep a grip on himself. “I’ve endured all your bullshit for years now,” he tells Sanders, his voice low. “We all have, because despite it you run a decent team, and we are stupidly competitive sometimes. But I am at the end of my fucking tether. I don’t care what you think of me, I don’t give a flying fuck if you think I’m doing all of this for the drama and the attention. I know that I’m not. But when you scream at me for caring about someone else, for going to visit someone in the hospital because I was knelt next to him on the road whilst he struggled to breathe and maybe, just maybe I wanted to see for myself that he was going to be okay, when the last time I had seen him he was _bleeding out on the_ _fucking road_!”

Napoleon takes a breath, trying to will the fury in his veins to back down. “When you scream at me for that,” he continues, his voice tightly restrained, “then you getting very, very close to me just walking. If you dare to speak to me like that again, then as soon as we get to Paris and I step off that goddamn podium, I am walking away.”

Without another word, he turns and leaves. Sanders sputters ineffectively, and there’s a flare of vindication that surges through Napoleon as he pushes open the door to the press hall and lets it slam shut in Sanders’ face.

0-o-0-o-0

It takes nearly an hour before the press are satisfied and an official appears to break it all up. Napoleon slips away, already pulling out his phone. He’d sent a few texts to Illya from under the table, having long since learnt how to text without looking at his phone, but he hadn’t been able to see if he’s replied without attracting too much unwanted attention from the sharks in the room.

Someone is slouched against the wall next to the door, the familiar black and red jacket of Alfa Romeo catching his eye, and Napoleon holds back a groan. “Matt,” he sighs. “Did Sanders send you to intercept me before I ran away again?”

Matt doesn’t look up from his phone as he pushes off from the wall and falls into step beside Napoleon. “Someone’s got to do the babysitting duties,” he mutters. “Road captain has to do all the dirty work, of course. And nobody wants to contradict Sanders just right now, so I came here instead of getting my head bitten off.”

Napoleon eyes him warily as they make their way back through the hotel. “Why?” he asks cautiously.

Matt shrugs. “He stormed onto the bus and spent nearly twenty minutes screaming at us about how he’d built this team, how we should show him some respect for everything he’s done for us and the team. The usual bullshit, but dialled up to eleven today.” He’s looking at his phone when he next speaks. “It’s almost enough to make you think about walking.”

Napoleon looks at him, and Matt very carefully doesn’t look up from his phone. “What do you mean by that?” Napoleon asks.

Matt just shrugs again. “You got the sense there was more to it than usual,” he says. “Something had set him off. And seeing that he’d just come from talking to you after you’d gotten back from the hospital…” He trails off. “We can make assumptions.”

Napoleon glances around them. “Nothing is happening,” he mutters, directing them to a quieter part of the hotel. “I got pissed off at Sanders, threatened some things… I’m not planning anything.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Matt replies. “This whole thing with Kuryakin and the crash has got your head all twisted up. You’re not the type who would normally threaten to quit over something like Sanders’ temper.” He finally looks away from his phone and over at Napoleon. “How are you holding up, by the way?”

“I’m fine,” Napoleon says immediately, and Matt scoffs.

“Like hell you are, mate.” He pockets his phone and comes to a stop, Napoleon having to stop abruptly so as not to crash into him. “Look, I don’t know what this thing is between you and Kuryakin, especially with everything that’s gone on with you since that bloody crash. Insisting on seeing him in hospital?” He shakes his head. “Not normal, mate, not if he’s just another cyclist to you. We all know the rivalry the press was spinning is utter bollocks.”

Napoleon’s mind blanks as he tries to come up with some way to explain it, to wave it all off, but Matt just gives him a look. “We don’t care, Solo,” he says. “Whatever this thing is between you and Kuryakin, you’re both consenting adults, and it’s none of my business unless it impacts the Tour, which is doesn’t look like it will.”

Napoleon stares at him. “There’s nothing happening,” is all he can come up with. Matt snorts at that, and Napoleon relents. “Fine, there’s…I don’t know what there is, but Matt, you have to promise me this stays within the team. There can’t be rumours about this.”

Matt gives him another look, but Napoleon stares him down. “There are rumours that are fun, that everybody spreads because you can’t help but gossip,” he says. “And then there are rumours that could irreparably damage someone. This is one of the latter. Matt, this cannot go beyond the team.”

There must be something in his expression, because Matt eventually just nods. “Yeah, fine,” he just says. “Just so you know, we all figured something was…different as soon as we saw you after that bloody crash.” He grimaces. “Well, as soon as we had to stop you cracking your chin open on the toilet seat whilst you were throwing up.” He shrugs and trails off.

Napoleon stares at him. “Right,” he says eventually. “Okay.” He takes a breath and starts walking again. “Will Sanders murder me if I don’t go straight to the bus?”

“Yep,” Matt just says, and Napoleon tries not to sigh. He changes direction, and they’re both silent until they reach the doors of the hotel. Matt pauses as he grabs the handle, and Napoleon automatically glances around to see if there’s anyone around who can overhear them.

“By the way,” Matt says slowly. “You should know…if you walk? Chances are a fair few of us would follow you.” He shrugs as Napoleon stares, wide-eyed. “The riders make the team, not the trainer,” Matt just says. “Just in case you’re thinking about it.”

He doesn’t say another word about it as they make their way to the team bus. For the rest of the day, Napoleon can’t ignore the tentative flicker of something deep within his chest.

0-o-0-o-0

He’s sitting in the team bus, yet more pasta in a bowl in his hand, when his phone buzzes and Illya’s name flashes up onto the screen. Napoleon almost drops the bowl as he snatches at his phone. A couple of his teammates look up from their own food, but only for a moment or two before leaving him alone again.

_Sanders is idiot_ , the text reads. _So are press._

Napoleon’s lips curl involuntarily. _Yeah, I’d already worked that one out_ , he replies. _How are you doing?_

It’s a minute or two before Illya responds. _Missed first texts. I was asleep. Sorry._

_No worries, Peril_ , Napoleon replies. He flicks back through his first few texts he’d sent whilst doing press, and they mostly consisted of how pissed off he was at Sanders, and how annoying the press were. Even with his outbreak at them yesterday, they hadn’t held off for long. _Weren’t v important anyway._ He pauses for a few moments, and then sends another text. _How are you?_

_Tired,_ Illya replies in a few moments.

_Ofc_ , Napoleon texts back. _Tbf, you are on lots of drugs. They will make you v tired._

It’s a long few minutes before Illya text back again. _I do not understand_.

Napoleon frowns, and his thumbs hover over his phone’s screen for a while as he tries to work out what Illya means. Before he writes anything, Illya texts him again.

_What is ofc and tbf?_

Napoleon almost laughs, remembering just at the last moment that there are other people in the bus with him. _Of course and to be fair,_ he replies. _It’s text speak. You’re probs on too many drugs to get text speak._

_English is hard,_ Illya text back. _Your language is weird._

_Write in Russian then,_ Napoleon replies quickly. _I won’t, because I cannot spell in Russian to save my life, but I can read it well enough, and you can probs read English even with all the drugs you’re on._

_Letters are wrong,_ Illya texts. _Cannot fix it._

Napoleon frowns at his phone for a moment. _Do you mean your keyboard?_ he asks. _Surely you’ve got a Russian keyboard set up on your phone._

_I don’t know,_ Illya replies. _Think so. Remember writing in Russian._

Napoleon can’t help the smile that curls his lips. _Look at bottom left of keyboard. There should be little world icon there, like a small circle. Click on that, you should be able to get to Russian keyboard from there._

There’s a long pause. _Think my phone is broken,_ Illya replies eventually, and Napoleon can almost hear the frown on his face. He can’t help but huff a laugh at that, ignoring the couple of looks he gets from his teammates.

_No, you are just very high on lots of drugs_ , Napoleon replies. _Call me later?? I’m in bus with team rn so can’t talk until evening._

_Rn?_ Illya asks.

_Right now,_ Napoleon explains. _We really need to work on your text speak._

_Very funny Cowboy,_ Illya texts. _Yes._

_Yes??_ Napoleon asks.

_Will call you later,_ Illya replies. _If I am awake. Like you say, I am very high. Might sleep until late._

_Go to sleep now and then you’ll be awake later to call,_ Napoleon texts. _Get some rest, Peril. Remember, the Tour is actually live tomorrow, not a replay._

_As you Americans say,_ comes the reply a few moments later, _fuck you._ _I am going to sleep._

Napoleon smirks at that, and shuts his phone off. “What?” he says at Matt’s expression. “Has Sanders said I’m not allowed to look at my goddamn phone now?”

Matt just holds up his hands. “Nothing, mate,” he says, though his expression says it clearly is something, and he goes back to his own food. Napoleon glares at him for a moment, but it’s half-hearted, and he soon gives in. He stabs reluctantly at his pasta and wishes, for a brief moment, that he was allowed to eat ice cream.

0-o-0-o-0

“You’re staring at your phone like it’s going to bite you.”

Napoleon flinches as Gaby, of all people, drops into the seat across from him. He sets his phone down with deliberate carefulness, and eats a few more bites of porridge before he says anything. The rest of his team aren’t down at breakfast yet, but he woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep.

“Aren’t you meant to be with your bikes?” he asks eventually. Gaby hasn’t stopped staring at him as he eats, and he puts down his spoon with a sigh.

“I’m a competent mechanic,” she says with a sniff. “I don’t need to spend every morning obsessing over the bikes. Why are you staring at your phone?”

Napoleon looks at her for a good few moments, but he can’t find it within himself to argue with her, not when he can feel his throat twisting with worry. He picks up his phone, flipping it in his fingers. “Illya was meant to call me last night,” he admits. “He probably just fell asleep, he’s on a lot of drugs, but…” He shrugs. “He hasn’t replied when I texted him last night or this morning, and I can’t just call up the hospital. I don’t particularly feel like having Oleg snap my neck, so I can’t ask him either.”

Gaby frowns for a moment, and then rolls her eyes. “I did give you my number for a reason,” she says, and he can hear the derision she makes no effort to hide in her voice. “If you’d asked me, I would have been able to tell you that they took the chest tube out last night, and he had to be sedated for it.”

Napoleon stares at her in alarm. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, you idiot,” Gaby says. “I’m sure he’ll be watching your heroics on tv later.” She stares at him some more, and steals a grape from a bowl on the table. They’re meant for decoration, no cyclist would be stupid enough to eat anything that didn’t come straight from their team nutritionist, but then Gaby doesn’t have to endure multitudes of drugs tests. He eyes them enviously as Gaby pops one in her mouth and then fixes him with a look. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?” she asks.

“Are you just getting that now?” Napoleon asks. “Really?” He shakes his head, and eats a few more mouthfuls of porridge because he doesn’t know what else to do, and he’s not that much of an idiot to not eat before a stage. “Jesus, Gaby,” he mutters. “I don’t know what else to say to you to convince you.”

“No, I think the past few days have convinced me enough,” Gaby replies, snagging another grape and popping it in her mouth. “You fool him around, though, and Sanders will be nothing. I will bury you.”

“I don’t doubt you will,” Napoleon says. He leans back in his chair, poking at his porridge with his spoon. “You have more weapons at your disposal than Sanders as well. I’m sure you could break me with a single wrench.”

Gaby snorts at that, and then nods decisively. “I could,” she says, and she looks like she’s already envisaging how she’d dispose of his body. “And I would. Illya has been through some shit in his life, and I won’t have you add to that.”

“How did the two of you meet, anyway?” Napoleon asks, trying not to think too much about Illya, Illya in the hospital, Illya with tubes in his damn chest because his lung had collapsed right there on the road. There’s a phantom sensation of blood on his hands, and he forces himself not to look down at them, to keep looking at Gaby and the room, the other cyclists slowly trickling in, to look anywhere but where he can feel the tackiness of blood on his hands.

“Oh, I fixed his truck when he and his team broke down in the arse end of nowhere and came across the only mechanics in the area,” Gaby replies, waving a hand. “Somehow managed to keep in touch, even with me in Berlin and him in Russia, and then I got the job with Mercedes. When he left and had no idea what to do beyond cycling, I pointed him in the direction of the Tour.”

Napoleon nods, but he’s only half listening to her. The other half of him is trying really hard to think of anything but Illya on that road, trying not to look at his hands because he knows, goddamn he _knows,_ that they’re clean, and checking to see if they are would just be caving to the irrational fears in his head. He nods at the right times in Gaby’s conversation, and hums along when there’s a pause.

To her credit, Gaby notices after only a minute or so. She trails off and narrows her eyes at him. “You’re not listening to a word that I’m saying,” she says accusingly. “What’s wrong?”

Napoleon skids his hands down the sweatpants that he’s wearing over his cycling shorts, feeling the fabric bunch up under his palms. “Nothing,” he says abruptly. “I should go. Sanders will have my head if I’m late.”

“That’s a terrible excuse,” Gaby says. “None of your team are down yet, and you’re early for breakfast.” She stares at him some more, and Napoleon has the uncomfortable feeling that she’s slowly picking him apart. If he was more together, if he wasn’t trying to win this damn Tour and cope with everything else imploding around him, he thinks it’d still take some effort to hold out against her.

“You know,” Gaby says as Napoleon pauses, on the edge of his seat as he’s about to get up, “you’re very different to how you’d have everyone believe.”

Napoleon eyes her warily. “What does that mean?” he asks, and as soon as the words leave his mouth he regrets giving her the opportunity.

Gaby smiles, and it’s a shade too sharp to be friendly. “All that charm and arrogance that oozes off you,” she says. “Especially as soon as you step in front of a camera. It’s not real, is it?” Napoleon just stares at her, and she nods to herself. “I suppose Illya sees it,” she muses. “I don’t think he’d ever like you if that was all real.”

Napoleon doesn’t know what to say to that. He knows that it’s all an act, of sorts, that trademark grin, the character he’s spent so long cultivating to survive that it’s a second skin, easy to slip on even when he doesn’t need to. He also knows that it’s been a long time since he’s found it that easy to drop his guard like he does around Illya. He wonders if it was inevitable, or if it was all just a matter of circumstance. He wonders if he hadn’t gone wandering that night around the hotel, listening to Springsteen sing about whores and gamblers and redemption, whether he would ever have realised what he still doesn’t think he quite understands.

When he doesn’t answer, Gaby just gives him a look. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, snapping off another grape and popping it in her mouth. “You ever think it’s just not worth the effort? All that acting?”

Napoleon can’t help the bark of startled laughter that slips past his lips. “Really,” he says, a real smile curling his lips for perhaps the first time today, “everybody acts. Everyone plays at being different people. All the world’s a stage, Gaby. I just happen to be a half-decent actor.” Gaby’s frown evens out, her expression becoming more curious, and Napoleon holds up a hand. “I’m not going to launch into a long story about how that came to be true, not even if you threaten me again,” he says. “I’ve had enough of that the past couple weeks.”

“Fine, I’ll have to interrogate you another day,” Gaby says with a sigh as she glances behind him. Napoleon twists to see a few of his teammates coming into the room, and Gaby snags another grape as she gets to her feet. “Don’t die on the stage today,” she says as she heads away. “I’d hate to have to tell Illya that you’ve become a smear on the road.”

“Charming,” Napoleon remarks, and Gaby shoots him a sharp smile over her shoulder as she strides away. It’s only a few moments later that a couple of his teammates slide into seats around him.

“What did she want, then?” one of them asks. “Isn’t she the Mercedes’ mechanic?”

“I saw her shouting at one official for dropping a bike,” another comments with a snort. “She’s bloody terrifying, that woman.”

Napoleon hums in agreement, and starts flipping his phone over and over in his hand again as he stares at the blank screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sanders is a dick, yep. Gaby and Napoleon are slowly getting somewhere, but it's not easy for either of them.
> 
> Exam results actually went well! I was nervous, but I did better than I thought I did, which is a huge relief.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so hot right now in England, and I feel like I'm actually melting when trying to go to sleep at night. Remember, nobody in the UK has air conditioning, and all of our buildings are designed to keep warmth in during the winter, not for these kinds of summers! On the plus side, work have got us a bunch of fans.
> 
> Despite Illya being in hospital I still managed to get a balcony scene in here, because I couldn't help myself. It's the usual level of angst of the balcony scenes, so sorry in advance, I guess?

No matter everything that’s going on around him, the feeling of crossing the line far in front of anyone else, the roar of the crowds as he punches the air, the thrill of a stage win, of knowing that he can win this, is a rush he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over. Even Sanders has a grin on his face as Napoleon comes to a stop, officials and reporters and everyone else crowding around him. Someone presses a water bottle into his hand and he drains half of it over his head before drinking the other half. Some days, he hates the rule that says nobody is allowed to drink for the final 20 kilometres of each stage.

“Get yourself cooling down,” Sanders says as soon as they get away from the crowds. Napoleon can hear the shouts of the fans as more riders come over the line, but he can’t help but think they’re quieter than they were for him. “Keep going like this and that jersey is a certainty.”

Napoleon drains another water bottle, ignoring the way his stomach churns at it. He’s become well-practised in ignoring the nausea that comes with finishing every stage, and he barely notices his body’s protest at downing a water bottle. Food is another matter, and he longingly looks at the packet of crisps in Sanders’ hands as he gets on the stationary bike to cool down.

His teammates trickle over the line and congregate around the team bus, slumping on the stationary bikes as they start to cool down. Napoleon eventually reaches for his jacket and shrugs it on. His phone is a weight in the pocket, and he fishes it out to see unread texts flashing up on the lock screen.

He always has messages after a stage, especially one where he wins, but this time he scrolls past all of them until he finds Illya’s name. There’s a long list of texts from him, what looks like a commentary on the entire race.

_Bet you ten Euros Andrei will break in first five km_ , reads the first one, sent just as the race was starting. The next text is five minutes later.

_You owe me ten Euros._

Napoleon can’t help but huff a laugh at that. Illya gives a running commentary on the race, with gaps of an hour or so here and there where he must have fallen asleep. The final half hour, though, there’s a text almost every few minutes. Illya is mostly making derisive comments about the other team’s tactics, though Napoleon notices he doesn’t mention the Mercedes team at all. With Illya out of the running, Mercedes has faded into the background somewhat, their only priority now making sure Kuznetsov keeps the green jersey.

_They should have followed you as soon as you went,_ Illya texts. Napoleon assumes he’s referring to when he and three other people, still hanging on in the hopes of getting as high up the rankings as possible and try to snatch the jersey off him, broke away from the breakaway group that had formed after the _peloton_ had split up. It had been early to break away like that, even for him, and Sanders had cursed him out for a minute in his earpiece, but Napoleon had thought the risk of tiring himself out had been worth it for the message it sent to the rest of the riders. He knew they’d noticed what had happened after the crash, knew they thought he was off his game. With only a few days to Paris now, he can’t make a single mistake.

_Looks like Morel has realised he is, as you Americans say, fucked_ , Illya has texted a few minutes later. _He is on radio, trying to raise domestiques to follow you out._

Napoleon can’t help but grin as he reads through the rest of Illya’s scathing commentary on the rest of the riders, the drugs obviously helping to loosen his tongue, or in this case, his fingers. His fingers hover over the keyboard on the screen.

_Loving the commentary, Peril,_ he texts back. _Enjoy watching my mastery on tv?_

Surprisingly, Illya replies almost immediately. _You were stubborn, breaking away that soon,_ he texts back. _Could have ended badly._

_Ah, but it didn’t_ , Napoleon replies, grinning at his phone. He leans on the handlebars of the stationary bike, pedalling without thinking about it as he cools down. _In case you didn’t notice, I did win this stage._

_American arrogance_ , Illya texts, and Napoleon can almost hear him rolling his eyes. _It was nice ride at end though._

_Is that a compliment?_ Napoleon asks quickly. _I think that’s the most praise I’m ever going to get from you._

_I can see you on tv_ , Illya texts. _Your two clock, I think._

Napoleon looks up, and sees the cameras watching the buses, the reporters in front of them. There’s a fair few congregating around the Alfa Romeo bus, obviously reporting on his win, and Napoleon picks out the camera at his two o’clock easily enough. He pauses in his pedalling for a few moments, sits up and gives a jaunty salute and a wink.

His phone buzzes only a few seconds later. _Show off_ , Illya texts. _You are impossible._

Napoleon grins at that. _Wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t,_ he replies, and he can just picture Illya rolling his eyes at that. _You wouldn’t have it any other way._

_I can’t believe I like an American,_ Illya texts, and Napoleon can feel his heart almost skip in his chest at that. Illya texts him again before he can come up with a suitable reply. _Will call later,_ he texts. _Got to have next round of drugs now, and will fall asleep._

_Get some rest, Peril,_ Napoleon texts back. _You can criticise all my riding in today’s stage later on._ Illya doesn’t reply, and after a minute or two of scrolling through the other texts on his phone and hoping for another one from Illya to flash up, he eventually pockets his phone.

“Oh, finally he surfaces,” his teammate on the bike next to him says. “Any insightful comments on the race from him?”

Napoleon rolls his eyes, and just about stops himself from pulling a face at his teammate or something equally juvenile. “He says your riding is abysmal,” he tells him.

Someone else laughs. “Yeah, like he was watching anyone else but you, Solo,” he comments. Napoleon glares at him, but he just shrugs. “Don’t worry your pretty head about it, Matt told us to keep it on the down low or whatever. Doesn’t mean we can’t take the piss out of you, though.”

“Like you can string together enough words to come up with anything remotely funny,” Napoleon remarks, his lips twitching in a sly smirk. “Go on, give it a go if you want. You need the practice.”

His teammate rolls his eyes, and Napoleon grins when, after a pause, he doesn’t come up with anything to say. They fall silent as they cool down, draining water bottles until people start pushing the first of the food on them, energy bars and protein shakes to start with until they can eat without throwing up. Their bodies are still protesting the stage, their muscles still trembling with the sheer exertion, but they’re all used to it by now. They know how to ignore it.

0-o-0-o-0

It’s late in the evening, the sun still up but only just, setting the fields of wheat on fire in burnished gold, when Napoleon finally is alone. He steps out onto the balcony of the hotel room. There are no mountains on the horizon anymore, the countryside levelling out as they inch closer to Paris with every day. Instead, there are gentle rolling hills, wheat fields and pasture interspersed with the old villages and cobblestone roads that made him fall in love with the country, when he first saw them. For a brief moment, he wishes they were further south, where the lavender fields of Provence are bright purple streaks across the horizon and everything smells of the Mediterranean.

It’s been too long since he was last there, since he last wandered around the country with nothing to do and nowhere to go. There’s a village, sitting below the ruins of a monastery in Provence, that he went through once on his way to Gordes, and he can still remember the nougat that he bought there in the market, walking through the ruins and looking out across the plateau shot through with lavender purple.

There was a memorial in the village that stuck with him, even now, a quiet plaque to those members of the Maquisard who were lined up in front of the wall in the village square, at the height of the resistance in France, and shot by the Nazis. The bullet holes were preserved in the wall, and he can remember reaching out, not quite touching them, his fingers running over the stone of the wall. There was a quiet pride still deeply rooted in the region, dotted with memorials to those who were killed by Gestapo for daring to stand up for their existence.

He remembers reading that the lavender fields were used as landing fields during the war, and the American in him still can’t quite understand the history that permeates everything here, how old everything is. Even the town they’re in right now has been standing for longer than his country has been a country.

His phone buzzes, and jolts him out of his thoughts. _Just woke up,_ says the message on the screen, Illya’s name staring at him from above the text. _Escaped Sanders?_

Napoleon huffs a quiet laugh to himself. _I’m sure he’s going to put a guard outside my room next Tour_ , he texts back. _I’m finally alone, though. Call? It’ll be easier than texting._

There’s a few long seconds that stretch out for even longer, over which Napoleon has the horrible urge to reach into his phone and snatch the last message he sent out of existence entirely. And then his phone lights up with Illya’s name as it buzzes in his hand.

He swipes across the screen and brings it to his ear. “Hey, Peril,” he says, a smile curling his lips. “How are you doing?”

There’s a rush of air over the line, and a rustle of what must be blankets. “Fine,” Illya says a moment later, and he sounds stubborn, even over the phone.

“I suppose by fine, you mean tired, in pain and possibly feeling sick as well?” Napoleon asks. “You forget, I know how opioids work. And I know your stubbornness.”

Illya huffs. “You’re not wrong,” he admits, reluctance to even admit that colouring his voice. “I can manage.”

“Never said you couldn’t,” Napoleon points out. “Just saying, you took one hell of a crash. You were in a coma for over a day. It’s okay that you’re not okay.” He takes a breath, and stares at the wheat fields he can see beyond the town. “Just…you don’t have to keep up pretences, okay? Not with me. Hell, you’ve seen me crying my eyes out over this, so whatever you say over the phone cannot be as embarrassing as that.”

There’s a pause, and then Illya sighs. “ _Da_ , Cowboy,” he mutters. “That was embarrassing for you.”

Napoleon chokes on a laugh. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Peril,” he replies.

He can hear Illya’s frown over the phone. “I do not understand,” he says slowly. “Why would I…is there reason for coat of sugar?”

Napoleon laughs again, not able to help the grin stretching across his face. “You are adorable,” he says, the words slipping from his lips before he can help it, and it’s too late to take them back now so he soldiers on. “It’s an expression,” he explains. “Means making bad news easier to hear, or being nice to not hurt someone’s feelings.” He grimaces. “Sort of.”

“Impossible,” Illya mutters. “You are impossible. Your language is impossible. It makes no sense, Cowboy.”

“Yeah, well it’s too late now,” Napoleon points out. “We can talk in Russian if you’d like, but you’ll just laugh at my accent again.” He runs a hand down the balcony, picking at the wood absent-mindedly. “What did you think of the stage?”

At that, Napoleon seemingly triggers something, because Illya gives him a rundown of all the tactics of the stage and his thoughts on the strategies used. After about a minute he switches into Russian without seemingly realising, but Napoleon can keep up well enough, and he can fill in most of the gaps as Illya keeps talking. There were a couple of crashes in the _peloton_ during the day, impressive enough to catch the camera but not bad enough for anyone to be seriously hurt, and Illya spends a few minutes ranting about how annoying some of the young riders in the _peloton_ are, how the Tour should do something about the way the fans are constantly getting in the way. Through it all, Napoleon just listens, an amused smile quirking his lips.

Eventually Illya trails off, and Napoleon arches a brow. “Feeling better?” he asks, remaining in Russian. Even if Illya won’t admit it, it must be easier for him to talk in Russian on the amount of drugs he’s probably on.

“People are idiots,” Illya mutters, and Napoleon can’t help but laugh at that. Illya sounds tired, but despite that he sounds coherent, more put together than he was, the soft slur that had been in his voice when he’d seen him in the hospital barely noticeable. For a brief moment he wishes he was there, that he could see the improvement for himself and not just have to piece together whatever he can from Illya’s voice right now, but then it passes. Winning this Tour does mean something to him, and he knows that he couldn’t walk away from it now, even if he tried.

“Believe me, I know,” he says, not bothering to hide the laugh in his voice. “But you get used to it eventually.”

“Was that Sander’s tactic, then?” Illya asks abruptly. “Your break? It was very early, even for you.”

Napoleon shakes his head. “No, he screamed at me for a solid minute in my ear when I did that,” he replies, a half-formed chuckle in his throat. “Won me the stage, though, so at least that stopped him complaining afterwards.”

“Sanders sounds worse than his reputation,” Illya remarks. “And his reputation is bad. At least Oleg has his good sides.” He pauses. “Occasionally.”

Napoleon hesitates, words on the tip of his tongue. He swallows them down with effort. “You know, I almost tried to defend him,” he murmurs. “Sanders, I mean. I almost tried to come up with excuses for him just now.”

“But you won’t?” Illya asks, his voice steady.

Napoleon shakes his head, and lets out a breath. “I’m done pretending like his training makes up for the way he treats us,” he says softly. “I’m done with the way he sees me, like I’m the whore that he only has on his team because I bring money in, and I bring attention.” He hadn’t made the decision until now, but he finds it cementing in his mind as he speaks the words out loud. “As soon as this Tour is finished, I’m walking away from Alfa Romeo.”

“Where to?” Illya asks. “Don’t say you’re going to retire already. That would be stupid.” He pauses. “Are you retiring?”

“I’m glad you think so highly of my intelligence,” Napoleon remarks. “You think I’d retire after this year, Peril? I want a proper race against you. I want to know who would really win out of the two of us.”

Illya scoffs. “Like you could hold me off in mountains, Cowboy,” he replies. “Next year I will have that jersey.”

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that,” Napoleon says, a grin curling his lips. “We’ll have to wait and see, I suppose.” He breathes out. “To answer your original question, I’ve been talking to someone for a couple months now, this old Tour winner who went on to become the CEO of some big international company. He’s interested in funding and managing a team. I turned him down then, but…” He trails off. “Waverly seems like a good man. Old school cyclist, if you know what I mean, but willing to listen to young blood. He’d manage it, but bring in trainers and, well…”

“It would let you build your team from ground up,” Illya guesses. “Napoleon…none of us get that chance. You have to take it.”

Napoleon hums. “It would be a lot of work,” he murmurs. “A lot. But yeah, it’s not something I can really turn down, is it? Especially not with how Sanders has been this Tour. He can find someone else to bully. I’m done with him.” He sighs, and leans more heavily on the balcony. “What about you, Peril? You said you have offers from two other teams.”

Illya breathes out, a rush of static over the phone. “I need to talk to Oleg,” he mutters. “Weber is looking like he’ll retire, or be out next year at least with that injury. I could…I could take lead at Mercedes. Or I could move teams. I need to talk to Oleg first.”

“I’ve heard enough about Oleg’s reputation as well,” Napoleon points out. “You sure it’s something you want to commit to?”

Illya sounds amused when he answers. “I was in army, Cowboy,” he points out. “Oleg isn’t much compared to them. I think…after this crash, he has been different. But I need to talk to him about it all.” He breathes out again. “Later. When I am better.”

“Yeah, of course, Peril,” Napoleon says. “Everything can wait until you’re out of hospital, at least.” He shifts where he’s leaning against the balcony, shielding his eyes from the setting sun as he looks out across the town, the edge of the fields just visible beyond the red tile roofs. The wind has shifted, and he thinks he can just about smell the olive trees in the groves just outside town.

“Speaking of, when do you think they’ll let you go?” he asks. “They can’t keep you in hospital forever.”

Illya is suddenly quiet. “They are saying three days, maybe four,” he says quietly. “If there are no more complications. Oleg wants to send me straight home.”

Napoleon can feel his heart slowly sink in his chest. “Oh,” he says softly. “Back to Germany, I suppose.”

“Cowboy,” Illya says, his voice just a murmur. “I know…” He clears his throat, and there’s a long pause before he speaks again. Napoleon stares at the sunset, finger tracing a whorl in the wood under his hands. “Whatever this is, between us,” Illya says slowly. “I…I don’t want to walk away not knowing, but I don’t know how…”

“Yeah,” Napoleon says slowly, breathing out. “I know. We live in different countries, for Christ’s sake. And I know it’s hard for you, not being out.” He pauses. “I would never ask you to do something you didn’t want to, you know that, right?” he asks. “If that’s more important to you than whatever this might be between us, I’ll walk away. I can handle that.”

“I don’t want you to,” Illya says, and his voice is small enough that Napoleon wishes fiercely they weren’t trying to untangle whatever this was over the phone, nothing to go on but each other’s voice and whatever they assign to it. He wants to be there, sitting in that uncomfortable hospital chair next to his bed, studying Illya’s face to work out what he’s thinking and just because he really is beautiful to look at. On the phone, he’s left guessing in the dark.

“I don’t want to lose what this might be,” Illya says quietly, like the words have been wrung out of him. It makes Napoleon’s chest ache, and for what seems like the first time in a while, he has the horrible feeling that this is something he wants desperately, but is nevertheless going to remain just out of his grasp.

“Me neither,” he murmurs. He sighs, and hangs his head. “We really had to go about this all the wrong way, didn’t we?” he asks. “Couldn’t have just done what normal people do, no, we had to hate each other first and then you had to go crash like you did.”

“I don’t think either of us are normal people, Cowboy,” Illya says dryly. “That left us long time ago.”

“Yeah, I suppose it did,” Napoleon remarks. “Ah well, never mind. Made life much more interesting.” Illya snorts in amusement at that, and Napoleon huffs a laugh that soon trails off. “This isn’t it, Peril,” he says. “If nothing else, I have a bet to win.”

“What?” Illya asks, and then abruptly he laughs. He stops quickly, his breath catching, and Napoleon winces as he realises what laughing must to do broken ribs. “That bet,” Illya murmurs. “I forgot. Where are we going, then? You won, so it is your choice.”

“Paris,” Napoleon says decisively. “It has to be Paris.” He knows already where he wants to take him, had decided on the restaurant as soon as he’d walked away from that conversation, late at night, but he wants to keep it a surprise. If they ever manage to go, that is.

“We can work everything out,” Napoleon says, finding his heart suddenly beating faster as he stands there, leaning on the balcony. “I’m willing to give it a go, Peril. I want to try.”

There’s a long silence on the end of the phone, and Napoleon’s heart is leaping into his mouth. “Cowboy,” Illya says eventually. “I want to, I do, but…” There’s a rush of static over the phone as he breathes out. “I don’t know,” he says eventually. “I just…it’s too big. It’s too much.”

Napoleon feels something in his chest twist, and slowly sink. “Yeah,” he breathes, because he can’t say anything else. “Okay.”

“I’m not saying no,” Illya says. “Cowboy, I’m not…I’m just saying not now. There is difference.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than Napoleon, and the uncertainty in his voice is the only thing that keeps Napoleon’s voice steady when he replies.

“It’s okay, Peril,” he says. “I understand. That restaurant will always be there in Paris, if you want.”

“I do, Cowboy,” Illya says, sounding miserable and tired. There’s the sound of rustling sheets and then, distant and tinny, a door opening and another voice. Illya sighs. “I have to go. More drugs and tests, I think. Nurse is glaring at me.”

Napoleon nods. “I should get some sleep as well,” he says. “I’ll…text me tomorrow, if you want. Get some rest, Peril. Get better.” He hangs up before he can say anything stupid, and stares at his phone for a long moment before he clears his throat and stuffs it into his pocket. His knuckles are white where he’s been gripping the balcony, and he has to consciously think to let go. Once he does, he turns and heads straight back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry? It will all get worked out, though, don't worry.
> 
> On a lighter note, Illya texting ' _I can't believe I like an American_ ' actually made me grin whilst writing it. That's the sort of cute fluffy thing that I adore, so I hope it made some of you grin as well.
> 
> Napoleon's brief thoughts about Provence is based on when I went to holiday there- the village he describes is where we stayed, and you really could see the bullet holes in the wall where the people had been shot by the Nazis (the Maquisard were the guerrilla resistance bands during French occupation in WW2, who hid in the mountainous areas of southern France) . The nougat is also real- the village had a street market, and this one stall had massive blocks of nougat where you could just cut pieces off. Napoleon not quite being able to understand how old the country is also comes from real life- I have American relatives, and when they come over to visit us they're always amazed at how old just random buildings around my village are. My local village church, for example, is well over 500 years old, more than twice as long as America has been a country, and that doesn't even register as old to us.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God we're actually getting close to the end of this story!! I don't know precisely how many chapters are left, but probably only three or so after this one! This has been an amazing story to write and share with all of you, I'm very proud of it and very grateful to everyone who has enjoyed it and let me know.
> 
> On the plus side, you know how I've talked a little about the sequel to the arts professor AU? Well it's close to being finished (for those who don't know, I finish every story before I even start to publish it, so I'll never leave a story unfinished and can go back to edit if I need to without throwing everyone reading it off). And there will be a third part to the AU! More after that as well, probably, but those won't be directly following the narrative of the sequel and as-of-now unwritten third story, they'll be more slice-of-life stories.
> 
> Anyway, in this chapter: more of Gaby being awesome, the beginnings of a plan, and yet _another_ balcony scene. I'm not sorry.

Her phone starts buzzing and doesn’t stop. She all but flings the screwdriver in her hand at the table as she starts patting down her pockets, before realising that she’d left the phone on the workbench where she’d just flung the screwdriver, when she’d started working on the new mechanism for the brakes on a bike.

It’s easier to get distracted in her work, easier to force herself to stay amongst the pieces of bikes and racks of tyres for hours on end, than it is to watch the Tour too closely. Every time she watches the day’s stage on the screens, she can remember standing there as Illya was flung across the road, remember the silence that had fallen across the room as they’d all watched him finally come to a stop on the tarmac.

She remembers seeing Oleg’s face as he’d turned away from the screens. Within seconds the entire room had erupted into activity, Oleg at the forefront of it as someone got the paramedics on the radio and someone else radioed for a helicopter, people running everywhere, but Gaby still remembers the look on Oleg’s face as he’d turned away from the shaky footage of Illya lying still in the middle of the road.

She must have watched that footage back about twenty times, once she could stomach it, trying to look for anything that she could have done to stop the crash from happening, any miraculous way she could go back and fix it so that Illya, her Illya, wasn’t lying broken in the road. It’s only because of that, because she has watched the figure of Solo scramble to his feet and stagger to Illya almost as soon as he’s crashed twenty times now, that she gave him her number in the first place. Maybe Illya was right. Maybe he isn’t what she thought he was.

She gets to her phone to see Illya’s name flashing up on the screen, and answers it just before it rings out. “How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Hello to you too, chop shop girl,” Illya replies. He sounds tired, but it’s a little better than the last time she spoke to him, when a combination of painkillers and the pain they couldn’t mask making his words slur and his voice wander and trail off. “I’m doing fine,” he says. “Well, fine enough. In pain, but I can manage.”

Gaby hums. She puts her tools down for the day and heads outside into the summer sunshine, phone against her ear. “I suppose that’s good enough for now,” she remarks. “Did you watch the Tour?”

“Some of it,” Illya replies. “I assume Napoleon is still in yellow jersey?”

“Oh, your boy is well out in front,” Gaby says with a grin. “I won’t jinx anything, but he’s got plenty of time over anyone else who still thinks they have a hope in hell of beating him.”

“He’s not my boy,” Illya says. There’s something to his voice that makes Gaby pause, an undercurrent of what she might call fear, if it were anyone but Illya.

“He bullied Sanders, of all people, into letting him go to the hospital just so that he could see you,” Gaby says. “He’s been a wreck since you crashed. You’d have to be blind not to notice how messed up he was over your crash. I’d say he’s your something.”

There’s an intake of breath over the phone. “He was that bad?” Illya asks. “When he came here he was…he was upset, but I didn’t realise…”

Gaby knows that Solo had barely been holding himself together after that stage. He’d looked terrible when he’d staggered off his bike and over to their bus, where they were all waiting for news, and she’d thought he was going to throw up when she first saw him. And he’s been different ever since, more brittle in the past few days, like he could crumble and fold in on himself if something else happens.

“He was really worried over you, Illya,” she says softly. “He still is. It’s infuriating, almost, how stubborn he gets when he wants answers about how you’re doing, or what’s happening, but I think most of the team have warmed up to him a little bit. After everything that’s happened, everything he did, it would be hard for them not to.”

Illya laughs quietly. “And you?” he asked. “Do you still hate him?”

Gaby pauses. “I think that you might have been right,” she says eventually. “Maybe. He’s definitely not what his reputation is, and he’s been so worried over you. That really means something to a lot of the guys, and to me as well. He likes you, Illya. He really does.” She smiles slightly. “I still reserve the right to maim him and hide the body if it goes wrong, though.”

To her surprise, Illya just sighs, a rustle of static over the phone. “I don’t think anything will happen,” he murmurs. “We talked, and…it would just be too much. It’s too big, Gaby.”

“Oh, Illya,” Gaby says softly. “If it’s anything, I think that whatever this is, it’s worth a chance at least. There’s nothing wrong with seeing where it might end up.”

“I don’t know,” Illya mutters. “I don’t want to talk about it. How is the team doing? How are they holding up?”

Gaby lets him get away with the blatant and slightly desperate deflection, because she knows when to push him and when to step away by now. She starts to talk about the team, filling him in on all the gossip that inevitably works its way around the Tour, and finds herself talking for minutes on end. She can hear Illya getting more and more tired each time he says something, but still she keeps talking, wanting to keep talking to him for just a little bit longer. It’s a poor substitute for having him here with her, for having him whole and fighting for what he’s worked so hard to try and get, but it will have to be enough for now.

Eventually, Illya starts yawning, and she can’t drag the conversation out any longer. “Get some sleep,” she says. “And remember what I said about Solo. Just…just think about it, okay?”

“No promises, chop shop girl,” Illya says, but there’s something in his voice that makes her think that maybe, this might all work out in the end. She hangs up, and heads in for dinner.

She’s barely across the courtyard when someone falls into step beside her. “Gaby, my dearest,” they say, and she rolls her eyes.

“You can say what you like, I’m not putting flame designs on your bike,” she tells him. “Keep asking and I will put training wheels on you.”

Antonio laughs. “As if you would dare,” he says. He pauses. “Wait, no, I take that back. You really would if you’d had enough.” Gaby gives him a look, and he laughs again. “But that wasn’t actually what I wanted to talk about.”

“Spit it out, then,” Gaby says. “Some of us have actual jobs to do.”

“So you know the dinner at the end of the Tour?” Antonio asks. “And how there are awards given out?” Gaby nods. She’s familiar enough with the Tour dinners for the cyclists and teams at the end of each Tour, though she usually can’t quite remember the end of them. There’s always a lot of wine.

“Well, there’s a murmur going around that Solo should get something for what he did,” Antonio says. “For Illya, I mean. Some of the guys aren’t too opposed to it, not after what we saw and heard on the radios. Anyway, I was thinking. I’ve got an idea for the dinner.”

He explains, and a slow smile curls Gaby’s lips. “You know, I think we might be able to pull that off,” she says. “Let me talk to Matt at Alfa Romeo. Keep it quiet, but we can work something out.”

0-o-0-o-0

He wakes with a start, his heart hammering in his chest. The room around him is pitch black, the only light a thin sliver under the door that he can barely see anyway, and he shudders and resists the urge to bury himself in his blankets like a child.

For some reason, it’s not the feeling of blood on his hands that has his throat working and him bury his face into the pillow in the hopes that he can drown it out. The worst thing is that he can still feel the road beneath his knees where he was kneeling, the grit that dug into his flesh, the way a slow trickle of blood wound its way down past one knee to keep following the steep mountainside. He resists the urge to rub at his knees, to make sure that the grit of the road isn’t still embedded there. He knows it isn’t.

He swipes his phone from the bedside table, and before he really thinks about it, he’s typing. He hits send before he means to, and then has to concentrate on his breathing for a moment as he stares at the message he’s just sent to Illya.

_How do you cope with nightmares?_

He stares at the darkness of the room and tries to will the lump in his throat away. Abruptly his phone buzzes in his hand, and then keeps buzzing. Illya’s name flashes up on the screen, and Napoleon answers without even thinking about it.

“What happened?” Illya asks, his voice quiet and steady. Just hearing it lets Napoleon relax slightly, his hands steadying a little. He leans back against the headboard of the bed, and lets out a breath.

“Bad dreams,” he murmurs, and even that seems too loud in the darkness. “Can’t shake them. Woke up thinking I was back on that fucking road. With you.”

Illya breathes in, a rush of static over the phone. “Is your light on?” he asks. Napoleon’s pause is enough. “Turn it on,” he says. “Get out of bed. You won’t want to, but do it anyway. Do you have balcony?”

Napoleon reaches over and switches on the lamp next to his bed with his free hand. “Yeah, I’ve got a small balcony,” he says as he pushes back the covers and gets to his feet. He understands what Illya means. There’s something in him rebelling the motion of his feet, wanting to crawl back into bed and cover his head with the blanket. Some monkey instinct still ingrained in humans that dark is bad, and cover is safe.

He slides back the door to the balcony, wincing at the sound it makes. “What is the point of this?” he asks Illya. “I can’t see anything.”

“Fresh air is good,” Illya just says. “Tell me about town you’re in.”

Napoleon leans on the balcony and stares at the darkness. “Your typical French town, I suppose,” he says quietly. “Pretty houses, pretty gardens, pretty French town.” He tries to think back to earlier in the day, the craze that was the end of the stage. “We finished the stage in the town square, I think. I don’t know, I just remember seeing someone almost trip into the fountain.”

Illya snorts in amusement. “Who was it?” he asks.

“Press,” Napoleon says, and Illya laughs at that. Napoleon can’t help but grin. “I know, they deserve it, really. They’ve been particularly bad this Tour.”

Illya hums. “Feeling more real?” he asks softly.

The question strikes at Napoleon, and he stares at the darkness for a long moment. He hadn’t realised until Illya had asked just how tenuous he felt, how disconnected he felt from something that he couldn’t name anyway, but is a moment away from understanding. “How did you know that?” he asks.

“Combat fatigue,” Illya reminds him, sounding tired. “I know what it is to wake up from dreams and not feel like you’ve woken up. Just sitting in darkness, half awake and half asleep, makes it worse.”

“I didn’t even think to get out of bed,” Napoleon admits. “I just wanted to stay there.”

“I know,” Illya says. “That’s why it helps to get up. Just trying to go back to sleep puts you back in nightmare. Getting up makes you realise it’s real.” There’s another rush of static, and a pained grunt as Illya shifts in the bed. “Talking makes you realise it’s real.”

Napoleon hums softly, and leans more heavily on the balcony. “You know what you were saying, about how it’s easier to talk in the middle of the night?” he asks, the thoughts forming even as he speaks them. Illya hums, and the words are drawn from his lips even as he strings them together. “Do you think it’s the same for yourself?”

Illya pauses. “No,” he says eventually. “I think it is easier to lie to yourself in dark. It is easier for mind to play tricks on itself.” He huffs a laugh. “Once, on…I don’t know English word for it, when I was with army and we were on exercise in Russia, I was looking out for rest of team? I do not know what you call that in English.”

“Guard duty?” Napoleon suggests. “Or sentry duty. Anyway, not important. Continue with the story.”

Illya snorts softly in amusement. “I was on guard, as you say, and it was middle of night. You become sure that every sound is someone coming to test your defences, or some attack. I nearly called in attack in middle of night, had radio in my hand before I realised it was sound of trees in wind, and not motorbikes.”

Napoleon grins, and huffs a soft laugh. “That would have been a sight to see, an attack by motorbikes in the middle of a wood,” he says. “But yeah, I get what you mean. Paranoia is the English word for that.”

Illya snorts again. “We have similar word in Russian,” he says. “It is not paranoia if people might actually be out to attack you, though. That’s what we always used to say in army.”

“Yes, well I doubt that anyone’s out for blood over me,” Napoleon points out, but his words fall flat in the night. There’s a pause, a quiet silence over the phone that is filled in the way that he knows Illya is still listening, still there on the other end of the line.

“What was dream about, Cowboy?” Illya asks eventually, and Napoleon breathes out, rubbing his hand across his face and trying to ignore the residual feeling of blood that’s returned to his hands, now that he’s thinking about it all again.

He leans heavily on the balcony. “You,” he says simply. “The Mont du Chat. You nearly dying on that fucking road right in front of me.”

Illya is silent for a moment. “I’m going to be fine,” he says quietly. “You know this.”

“Yeah, but you almost weren’t!” Napoleon snaps. “You had a punctured lung. Don’t patronise me by thinking I don’t know how bad that could have been. If medics hadn’t gotten to you quickly, you could have drowned in your own fucking blood.”

“But I didn’t,” Illya says, and that calm, steady voice makes Napoleon want to scream, want to shout and rail against the world because, well, he doesn’t know why, but there’s a scream lodged in his chest that he can’t get rid of.

“Why aren’t you concerned over this?” Napoleon asks, that scream begging to leave his lips. “Why doesn’t this bother you? You were bleeding out on that _fucking road_ , and there was nothing I could do!”

There’s a pause, and Napoleon stares out at the darkness as his chest heaves. “Is that it?” Illya asks quietly. “Is that what is hurting you so much? That you couldn’t help?” He huffs a quiet laugh, and Napoleon wants to glare at him for that, wants to stare at him in outrage, but they’re on the phone and he can do nothing but stare into the darkness in front of him.

“No,” he says eventually. “I don’t…maybe. I don’t know.” He sighs, and hangs his head.

“Cowboy,” Illya says patiently. “Napoleon. You did everything you could. You stopped and knelt next to me on road, and you tried to comfort me.” He pauses, a rush of static over the phone as he breathes out. “That means everything. It does. But you cannot ask thousand questions about what you could have done, when it has been and gone.” He sounds almost amused by it. “That way lies madness.”

“Oh, and you would know that?” Napoleon snaps. He regrets the words the moment they’re out of his mouth, wants to snatch them back and never say them, but it’s too late. There’s a silence on the phone for a moment.

“Yes,” Illya says quietly. “I would.”

Napoleon breathes out, some part of him just thankful Illya didn’t hang up there and then. “I’m sorry, Peril,” he murmurs. “I’m…god, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t remember much after crash,” Illya says, seemingly ignoring the apology, but Napoleon thinks this is his way of accepting it, of offering forgiveness. “But I remember being on road. I remember you being there. It was enough that I could focus on something other than…everything else. It was enough, Cowboy. I mean it.”

Napoleon breathes out, a long sigh that seems to calm the tangle in his chest. “I keep thinking I can feel the blood on my hands,” he murmurs. “Or the grit that dug into my knees on the road. I don’t know why, I try to stop myself checking my hands are actually clean because I know, _I know_ that they are, but-”

“Don’t be stupid,” Illya interrupts. “If you think you can feel blood on your hands? Check there is no blood on hands. Just look down at them once, see that you are right, and then don’t look again. It won’t help if you try to ignore it like that.” He sighs. “You should talk to someone who actually knows about this stuff. I’m just repeating what doctors said to me.”

Napoleon hums. “No, I mean it,” Illya says, and his voice is firm. “After Tour, if it is still problem, then talk to someone. I spent long time denying my problem, and it just made it worse until I had to leave army. Talk.”

“Sir, yes Sir,” Napoleon mutters, a smile twitching at his lips at Illya’s scoff. “What was your rank in the army, by the way?”

“ _Kapitán,_ ” Illya says. “Not that has anything to do with anything, Cowboy.” He shifts around, a pained grunt over the phone as he does so. “You should try sleeping again. What is stage like tomorrow?”

“Haven’t you been watching all the coverage, Peril?” Napoleon asks teasingly. “Not that interested in me after all?”

Illya scoffs. “I can only stand you on tv for so long before Russian in me decides it is too much American,” he says, and Napoleon can hear the grin in his voice. “I fell asleep before they talked about tomorrow.”

“Oh, it’s easy enough,” Napoleon says. “I have over nearly two minutes over the person behind me, and it’s flat. I’ll be fine if I miss a little sleep. It’s only two days out from Paris now, anyway.”

“Cobblestones?” Illya asks, and Napoleon instinctively winces. If there’s anything that all Tour riders are united in hatred against, it’s the cobblestones they have to contend with in the latter parts of the Tour. It’s impossible to even think when riding over them, and the bikes are constantly breaking. He still remembers the one year when the yellow jersey, fed up of cobblestones, took a shortcut over a ploughed field instead of enduring them for a minute longer.

“Had them yesterday, don’t think they’re in the route tomorrow,” he says, trying to think back to Sanders’ strategy session in the evening. “Still manageable if they are there, though.”

Illya hums. “Go back to sleep, Cowboy,” he says eventually. “It’ll all still be here in morning.”

Napoleon nods, and realises too late Illya can’t actually see him doing that. “You also probably shouldn’t be up at…nearly two in the morning, I think,” he says. “Keep up the Tour commentary tomorrow. I like seeing all the bets you make on my behalf.”

“You owe me thirty Euros now,” Illya says smugly. “I expect payment.”

“I could object, but I’m feeling generous,” Napoleon says, a laugh colouring his voice. “I’ll let you have this. Of course, this means I’m going to have to come find you so I can pay you back. That’s the only way.”

“Come find me then, Cowboy,” Illya tells him, and Napoleon can hear the smirk in his voice, can imagine the sly smile curling the corner of his lips, the dangerous look on his face that is too tempting for him to ever walk away from. “I won’t make it too easy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There isn't actually a dinner at the end of the Tour, or awards other than the jerseys, but I need it for plot purposes, so shush.
> 
> I'm going to disappear and try to finish this sequel now, I'll be back in a few days with hopefully some good news about it's progress! You should be warned, though- it's angsty. To the point that somedrunkpirate, who has listened to me rant about the holes in the plot and has helped me wrangle the narrative into shape, has declared me evil for what I'm going to do. Sorry.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. SO.
> 
> I have had a stressful week at work, with things not working properly and me making a mistake that meant I had to redo a bunch of work and the results not being what we wanted, so I'm publishing another chapter to celebrate finally reaching the weekend and to cheer me up a bit! But the main bit of news I have, other than that this story is slowly coming to an end and there's only a few more chapters left after this, is that the arts professor AU sequel (I need a shorter name for it) is finished!
> 
> AND IT'S 82K LONG.
> 
> I don't know how that happened, I seriously have no idea. I still have to do a read through and make sure that it all works- after long ramblings with somedrunkpirate over meta and plot (thank you again for listening to my rants and then helping me fix the narrative, you're awesome) the story changed significantly, and I need to make sure the beginning, where I wasn't really planning anything big with this story, still fits the much larger (and much angstier) ending. But once this Tour fic is finally finished, I will be able to start publishing the new story pretty much straight away!
> 
> Regarding this actual chapter you're about to read, I expect lots of shouting in the comments. Don't disappoint.

He rides into Paris with a glass of champagne in hand.

The _peloton_ is moving slowly through the streets, and Napoleon can’t help but sit up on the bike and take a sip of champagne, winking at one of the cameras in front of them. The green jersey is next to him, and the King of the Mountains on the other side. The _peloton_ is strung out behind them, giving them their moment of triumph before the race for the finish starts, but Napoleon doesn’t care. No matter what happens, he’s won the Tour. The final stage is just for show, just so that someone can have the honour of saying they’ve won in Paris, won on the Champs-Élysées.

The green jersey, Kuznetsov, reaches over and clinks glasses with him. “Not a bad race, Solo,” he says, a grin on his face. Napoleon laughs, giddy on the triumph of what he’d been fighting for ever since he’d first ridden in the Tour as a lowly _domestique_. He twists on the bike, even as he continues to ride through the streets of Paris, and raises a glass to his team. The Alfa Romeo team are right behind him, all with champagne of their own, and there’s a whoop from someone. They break out into loud cheers, raising their champagne up into the air and not caring that half of them spill it everywhere. Napoleon can’t help but laugh.

The Mercedes team are right beside them, behind their green jersey, and as they continue through Paris, Napoleon’s glass slowly emptying of champagne, the two teams merge until they’re riding together, right at the front of the pack. There’s a brief pang in Napoleon’s chest. Illya should be amongst them, Illya should be riding next to him. Illya should be wearing the jersey.

There’s still a race on, still a stage to be finished, and once the champagne is finished the _peloton_ starts to get restless, waiting for their leaders to start the race. Napoleon glances behind him, at his team that are waiting for him, and their answering grins are all he needs.

“Ready to finish this?” he asks Kuznetsov.

“Been waiting for you, Solo,” Kuznetsov replies with a grin. “Go on. You’re our yellow jersey. Your race is waiting for your lead.”

Napoleon laughs. It’s indescribable how he feels, the sheer relief and triumph of winning, of knowing that he has made it this far, all the way from that child who ran from a house and a broken bottle, stole a bike and didn’t stop running. He’s won races and championships, but nothing compares to this, nothing compares to pushing himself further than he ever has, to the point of breaking and beyond, and knowing that it was worth it.

He glances behind at his team one last time, and then leans over the handlebars of his bike as he starts to ride.

The streets of Paris whip past him, his team coming up around him so that the sees the city through flashes of black and red and, out of the corner of his eye, slivers of silver. After a few seconds, he realises that it’s the Mercedes team interspersed with his own team, riding beside him like he’s their leader. One of them draws close for a few moments, a sly smirk curling his lips.

“We’re only doing this because Gaby told us to,” he tells him. “We’re too scared to say no to her.”

They round a corner, Napoleon still riding at the head of the _peloton_. Another Mercedes _domestique_ edges up to him, and as they reach a straight portion of road, gives him a look that’s full of a strange sort of respect Napoleon never thought he’d see on the face of a Mercedes rider. “We’re doing this for Illya,” he says quietly. “For what you did for him. Consider this our thanks.” Napoleon doesn’t have words to respond, has nothing but a lump in his throat, so he just nods. The Mercedes rider fades back into the group.

They race through Paris, the Arc de Triomphe slowly coming into view in the distance over the gabled roofs and trees in full leaf. Napoleon, bright in his yellow jersey, races down the roads of the city that he loves so much, and silver and black and red surround him as an honour guard.

It doesn’t last, of course. It can’t last, it shouldn’t, and Napoleon lets the moments slip past him along with the streets of Paris as he races down them towards the end. They break up, and Napoleon lets himself fall back as those riders vying for the stage win start to creep forwards. He already has the jersey, he doesn’t need the stage win. Privately, he doesn’t know if he has enough left in him to win. He’s given up so much for this.

His team follow him back, and Mercedes follow their green jersey as he pushes forwards. He thinks Vitaly gives him a grin as he starts to ride forwards and break away, but he can’t be sure.

They are heading into the heart of Paris, and slowly the crowds grow larger and larger until there are hordes of people lining the road, their roars echoing in his ears. Up ahead there are other riders breaking away, and he increases the pace, just enough to keep them in sight and keep him on their tail.

They round a corner, and then another, and then they are on the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe is in the distance. Napoleon barely sees it. He doesn’t look beyond the bright red banner stretched across the road. It’s only a few hundred metres away now.

He rises up over his handlebars and races forwards, digging deep one last time. Around him the crowds are shouting, but he barely hears them over the wind whipping past him and the roaring in his own ears. There’s a bright banner and a white painted line on the road ahead of him, and if someone had told him as a child, running as fast as he could and then stealing a bike because he couldn’t run any faster on his own two feet, if someone had told him that he would run all the way here, he would have laughed at them and then pickpocketed them for good measure.

He laughs now, can’t help the triumph and sheer joy that bubbles up from his chest into a laugh as he crosses the line, his teammates around him and the yellow jersey on his back. He doesn’t think it could get better than this.

0-o-0-o-0

The clink of a fork against a champagne glass goes unheard amongst the raucous noise filling the room. A moment later, and everyone jumps as someone bangs down on the table, making the cutlery jump and a spoon skitter towards the edge.

“Right, if you lot could shut up for a moment, then maybe we could get this started.”

There are jeers from most of the cyclists in the room, a couple picking up pieces of bread and throwing them at the speaker. Matt dodges them easily enough, a grin on his face. Napoleon, lounging in the chair next to Matt, shakes his head. “Quieten down, children,” he says. “Let the man speak.”

“Right,” Matt says, throwing a punch at Napoleon’s shoulder. Napoleon winces theatrically, and has another sip of wine to mask his smile. “So, your esteemed yellow jersey should be doing this, but he says, and I quote, ‘I’m planning to get drunk tonight, I’m not making any fucking speech’, so he made his road captain do the honours instead. We do all the work anyway, so this wasn’t unexpected.” There’s another round of laughter at that, and Napoleon smirks, raising a glass to the rest of the room. It’s full of cyclists, most of the teams staying for the final dinner, and mixed in amongst them are the mechanics and support they depend upon so much.

The trainers have their own table towards the back. It started out as an accident, and then turned into a joke. Now it’s stuck, and the trainers usually use the dinner to begin bargaining for riders a little early. Napoleon can see Sanders giving him a look from that table, and he widens his smirk.

“Anyway,” Matt says, once everyone has quietened down. “We all want to thank the wonderful support staff who make this Tour possible, our trainers for not biting our heads off every day despite our best efforts,” and at that he pauses to give Napoleon a long look, that makes Napoleon grin and drink more wine, “and each other for leaving us all intact.”

“Mostly intact,” Napoleon interjects, and if his grin dips for a moment, if it falters, then he hides it behind his wine glass. Matt just continues, hand falling to Napoleon’s shoulder very briefly.

He starts his speech, what should have normally been Napoleon’s, and everyone is full enough from the spread of food that they are happy to listen to him recount the best and stupidest parts of this Tour. Napoleon laughs at the right moments, offers comments when he needs to, and tries not to be distracted by the fact that though the silver jackets of Mercedes are scattered throughout the room, Illya is not here.

Matt keeps going, and Napoleon fiddles with his wine glass as he tries to listen, tries not to think about where Illya is right now. He’s probably on a plane heading into Germany, or already there. Either way, it’s further away than Napoleon wants. Napoleon rubs one hand down his thigh, reassuring himself with the drag of his skin over the fabric of his trousers that his hands are clean.

He starts to pay attention again as Matt seemingly starts to bring his speech to an end. “A few last things, before we all get completely pissed,” he says, which is accompanied by cheers and more than a few people reaching for their drinks. “We have some awards to give out.”

At that, Napoleon smirks. It’s tradition for a few awards to be made up after the end of the Tour, rewarding people who were particularly stupid, or pulled off some remarkable stunt or two only to crash and burn later. They’re always stupid, and good fun to laugh at the replays that someone will have cobbled together in whatever spare time they can find.

“Right,” Matt says as someone passes him a sheet of paper. “Here goes.” He clears his throat, and Napoleon tries in vain to read some of the sheet. Even he hasn’t managed to get hold of the list, drawn up in secret between the road captains of the teams who guard it fiercely.

“Our first award is to be presented to Andreas Fischer,” Matt reads out. “For the best arse on display during the Tour.” There’s a roar of laughter, and on the wall above the top table a clip suddenly starts to play. Napoleon twists in his seat to watch the wonderful moment, captured right on camera, as Andreas rises up out of the saddle and his cycling shorts split right open down the seam to reveal the boxers underneath.

Someone else gets to their feet further down the tables and pulls something out of a bag. “Your prize, Andreas,” he says, and tosses the object across the table to him. The boxers hit him right in the face, and there’s a second round of cheers and laughter as everyone realises there is a pattern of tiny bikes all across them.

“Okay, moving on,” Matt says. “The next recipient will be receiving this lovely item,” and as he gestures, another road captain reaches beneath his chair and pulls out an object shrouded in a plastic bag. Matt seems to choke down on a laugh, and glances behind him at the wall. For the moment, there is no footage projected onto it.

“So, the next award goes to George Legrand,” Matt reads out, and motions for him to get to his feet. The _domestique_ does so with a laugh, already knowing what is coming, and Matt grins. “We would like to award you for the display that most made us all want to toss our cookies along with you, and present you with this bucket should you need to do so again.” The other road captain pulls off the plastic bag to reveal a little plastic bucket, the type used at the beach. There’s a bright blue crab on the front of it.

Matt has to wait for nearly a minute before the cheers and shouts calm down enough for him to get a word in. George gracefully accepts the bucket and clutches it to his chest. “Now, we all know that this was kept out of the press and everything,” Matt says. “But nevertheless, some intrepid person managed to get footage. Enjoy.”

It’s video from a shaky phone, but it’s enough to see the cyclist pull over at the edge of the road and nearly tumble from his bike as he heaves his guts up. There are cheers from the cyclists as they watch, and George shrinks in his seat as others pound him on the back.

Napoleon just leans back in his chair and listens as the rest of the awards are presented. The thrill of winning is just beginning to wear away, and with the wine he’s been drinking, he’s now starting to feel tiredness creeping in at the edges. He glances at the chair next to him, where Vitaly is sat. Vitaly glances at him, and quirks a brow. “Feeling the wine?”

“Not at all,” Napoleon replies, and he takes another sip. “Any news on Illya? Has he made it back home yet?”

Vitaly glances at the table where Oleg is in what looks like a heated discussion with Sanders over something. “No, nothing yet,” he says. “He’s probably still in the air, or maybe asleep.” He shrugs. “He’ll let us know when he’s back home, I’m sure.”

Napoleon nods, and masks his unease with another gulp of wine. He still feels the absence of Illya in a strange way, feels that when he turns his head he should be sitting next to him. He is still wearing the yellow jersey, and it feels right on his skin like the Alfa Romeo shirts never have, but he remembers it on Illya, the grin on Illya’s face as he crosses the line on a stage win. For a brief moment there’s something like double vision, and he can see Illya sitting there in the yellow jersey, a grin on his face as he lounges in the chair, revelling in his rise from obscurity.

He blinks, and it fades, leaving only a bitter taste in his mouth. He sips at his wine to wash it away, and tries to pay attention to what Matt is saying.

“We have one more award to give out,” Matt says, and he folds up the piece of paper and puts it away in a pocket. Napoleon briefly entertains the idea of pickpocketing it to see the final award, but decides he has had a little too much wine to try it, especially with everyone watching them.

Matt clears his throat, and the room falls quiet. “Right, before I announce this award, I would like to ask everyone to raise their hand if they agreed when asked earlier, and still do agree, that nothing leaves this room, nothing is leaked to the press, or spoken of outside of ourselves.” Napoleon frowns, and looks up at Matt.

“What is this?” he murmurs. Matt just shushes him, and Napoleon looks out across the rest of the room to see every single person raise their hand.

“Okay, so that’s settled,” Matt says. “Most of you know what this is, because we asked around before deciding upon this particular award. If you’ll let me get all morose for a few moments, this Tour has had its horrible moments as well as the spectacular. I think we all know what I’m talking about.”

Napoleon holds back a wince, and tries to work out where this is going. Before he can piece much together, though, Matt continues. “In light of everything that has happened this Tour,” he says, “we would like to present an award to someone who went above and beyond what sportsmanship we usually see in this Tour.” He turns to Napoleon. “Get up, Solo.”

Napoleon stares at him, and Matt grabs his arm to pull him to his feet. “I won’t rehash everything that happened this Tour,” Matt says. “We were all there, we all saw it. But we should recognise when someone puts their own ambitions to one side to help another, especially in such circumstances as these were.”

Napoleon suddenly realises what this is about. “No, Matt, stop this,” he says quickly. “I don’t-”

“We all agreed on this,” Matt says, swatting Napoleon away. “It was Vitaly’s idea, actually. And we asked every single person in this room if they would agree to it. Nobody said no.” He grins at Napoleon. “You deserve this. Now shut up and listen to my speech.”

There’s a strange sense of helplessness as Napoleon stands there and watches Matt turn back to the room. “When this Tour started, we all thought Solo and Kuryakin would kill each other before the week was out. Alfa Romeo and Mercedes have always had a torrid love-hate affair,” at that, there’s a ripple of laughter through the room, “and it seemed this was to be another Tour of quietly watching the two leaders tear each other to pieces, both figuratively and literally, whilst we worked our arses off keeping the whole thing running behind the scenes.”

Another ripple of laughter, and Matt grins. “But that didn’t happen. Instead, we watched as Solo and Kuryakin fought their way back into the lead after a crash, turned this Tour into a two-man race with every stage, and swapped the yellow jersey between themselves every other day without so much as a snide remark to the press. And then, of course, there was the crash.”

Napoleon can’t help but flinch slightly, and glance over his shoulder to check that the footage of it wasn’t being shown. “I won’t rehash all of that, we’ve seen it far too much,” Matt says. “But I don’t know how many of us would have done what Solo did. I don’t know how many of us would have had the strength to keep going after all that.”

Matt grasps Napoleon’s shoulder. “So we would all, every one of us, like to thank you for the reminder that though we all seem to hate each other on the road, we all do this sport for the same reasons,” he says to Napoleon. He turns to the room. “Solo is perhaps one of the best examples of what people aspire to be in this sport, if you ignore the fact that he’s American. And we are grateful.”

Napoleon can’t quite make out who cheers first, only that the room erupts into cheers and applause as, one by one, all the cyclists rise to their feet. He runs a hand over his face, and waves at them all to sit down.

It takes a long few minutes before they do. Napoleon clears his throat. “I hate you all,” he says, to laughter. “I really, honestly do. I’m not an example of anything, nor should I be held up as one. But nevertheless, I thank you all for this.” He pauses, searching for the right words. “It’s easy, sometimes, to forget why we are all here. In amongst all the rivalries and tactics and everything that goes on in the Tour, it’s easy to forget that we do this for the love of the sport. We break ourselves for the thrill of the sport. This year, we broke more than we should have, and it’s never nice to be reminded of the risks of this.”

He pauses again. “I don’t…there aren’t sufficient words to put together all of this, and I’m not eloquent enough to do so anyway. So I’ll just say thank you, and I still hate you all for this.”

He goes to sit down, but Matt grabs his arm. “Just wait a second, Solo,” he says. Napoleon watches, looking slightly worried, as Vitaly gets to his feet on his other side. Matt grins sharply. “We haven’t actually awarded you with anything yet. Everyone else got something.”

Napoleon groans. “If you give me a fucking participation trophy again, I will beat you with it,” he threatens.

Matt laughs. “No, we have something much better,” he says, as Vitaly leaves the table and heads to the door, slipping through it. “Remember what I said at the beginning of all this,” Matt reminds him, his voice low. “Nothing that happens tonight leaves this room. Nothing gets leaked to the press, nor to any cyclists not here tonight. We all promised this, and we won’t go back on our word.”

Napoleon stares at him, and feels his heart jump up into his throat for a beat. He realises suddenly that Gaby is not in the room, and that he hasn’t seen her all evening. He stares at the door that Vitaly had slipped through moments ago. “What’s going on, Matt?” he asks, turning to him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh, this wasn’t me,” Matt replies slyly. “This was Mercedes’ idea. Antonio’s originally, I think, but all prompted by dear Gaby. Nevertheless, all of Alfa Romeo agreed to this. We’ve been working this out behind your back for a few days now.”

Napoleon stares at him. “What the hell is going on?”

The door opens behind him. “Cowboy.”

His heart beats so loudly in his chest, he’s sure everyone in the room can hear it. Napoleon turns and it really is Illya standing there, standing only a few metres away from him. Gaby is at his side, a wicked smile on her face as she locks gazes with Napoleon, and just nods.

“Peril,” Napoleon says softly. Illya has one arm in a sling, bruises still down one side of his face, and he looks pale and tired, but as soon as Napoleon speaks, his expression shifts. There’s a quick upturn of the corners of his lips, and to Napoleon, that’s more than enough.

He shoves his chair back, the legs screeching across the floor, and crosses the few scant metres between them. It feels like a century before he reaches him, and distantly he remembers the paradox, how nothing should ever be able to move anywhere, because to get there requires an infinite number of steps, crossing first halfway and then halfway again until there are infinitesimally small distances still to travel to reach one’s goal. With a few short steps, though, that paradox collapses, and he reaches Illya.

“Peril,” he says again softly, and Illya’s lips quirk again. “You’re here.”

“Stating the obvious, Cowboy,” Illya replies. He takes a step closer and closes the scant distance between them. Completely disregarding everyone obviously watching them, he reaches out. Napoleon looks down as Illya presses something into his hand. It’s his old iPod, and the speakers that he’d left him in hospital. He stares at them, until a finger gently tilts his chin up, and he meets Illya’s gaze.

“I listened,” Illya says softly. “Your playlist. I listened to all of it.” His thumb trails across Napoleon’s jaw.

“What did you think?” Napoleon asks. Illya breathes in, gaze skipping briefly from Napoleon’s face to the iPod in his hands.

“I have been thinking,” he murmurs. “About what you said. And I think…” He breathes out, and Napoleon can’t help but reach up and cover Illya’s hand with his own. Illya smiles slightly. “I understand it now, Cowboy. Why you like Springsteen so much.”

“Oh?” Napoleon asks. “And why is that?”

Illya shrugs. “ _Land of Hope and Dreams_ ,” he says. “I listened.” He smiles, and his thumb strokes across Napoleon’s jaw again. “I have thought about what you said,” he says. “About whatever this is. About how you would walk away if I wanted you to. How you would do that for me.”

Napoleon blinks. “Where is this going?” he asks.

“I was wrong,” Illya says quietly. “When I said this was too much. I was wrong, when I said I could not risk losing everything for this. I still might, but if there is chance…that I might have all this, and you too, then I cannot miss that.” He smiles slightly. “I will not miss that.” He glances at the rest of the room, at all the cyclists who are suddenly pretending very hard not to be staring at them and trying to listen in to every word. “Is there still…that chance?”

Napoleon stares up at him. “Illya,” he murmurs. “You are aware we are standing in a room full of our teammates and the rest of the Tour cyclists? That they are probably listening to every single thing we are saying?”

“Gaby told me everything that happened here after crash,” Illya says. “How everyone else felt about it. She says half of people figured it out by now.” He shrugs, a wolfish grin on his lips. “There are worse ways to come out.”

Napoleon chokes on a breath, and scrambles to make his thoughts even slightly coherent. “Are you…are you sure?” he asks.

“No,” Illya says honestly. “But then if you wait until you are certain, you will wait too long and it will all pass by whilst you watch.” His thumb traces the line of Napoleon’s cheekbone. “I would like to kiss you now, Cowboy,” he murmurs. “If I can.”

“I’m certainly not stopping you, Peril,” Napoleon breathes. He presses closer, watching Illya’s tongue as it darts out to wet his lips. “And I would definitely kiss you back.”

Illya’s eyes darken, and his hand slips from Napoleon’s jaw to the nape of his neck. “We will get heckled for this, though,” Napoleon says quickly. “Possibly have bread thrown at us. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was waiting to dump a bucket of water over us, just for the fun of it, though I don’t know if they’ll do that to both of us or just-”

“Shut up, Cowboy,” Illya growls, and he pulls him in for a kiss.

There is the sound of raucous cheering from the rest of the room, but Napoleon ignores it as his eyes flicker shut and he tilts his head to capture Illya’s lips. His hand goes to Illya’s cheek, brushing across it and pulling him closer, pulling him down to him. Illya yields, his arm wrapping around Napoleon’s waist, his hand resting in the small of his back, and when Napoleon’s tongue flickers across his bottom lip he groans so softly that the sound is swallowed by the kiss. Napoleon resists the urge to pull him even closer, resists the urge to wrap an arm around him when there are bruises and broken bones that would only hurt him, but it takes more effort than he would care to admit.

Eventually they break apart, and Napoleon can see the blush in Illya’s cheeks as he turns to face the room. He spends a moment longer staring at the planes of Illya’s face, before turning too. The sight stops him dead.

Every single person in the room in on their feet and applauding. Some are cheering. The Mercedes and Alfa Romeo teams have come forwards together, black and red mixed with silver, and every single one of them have grins stretching from ear to ear. Napoleon gapes at them, at even Sanders reluctantly on his feet and clapping, at Gaby standing in front of them both with a wicked smile on her face.

“Well done for finally getting both of your heads out of your arses,” Matt says, stepping forwards and, to both their surprise, shaking first Napoleon’s hand, and then Illya’s. “Don’t worry, we promise that this won’t go beyond this room until you’re both ready.”

Illya glances at Napoleon. “Surely you didn’t know?” he asks them. “We did not…I only knew I was coming here when Gaby came to pick me up.” He looks at Napoleon helplessly, and Napoleon shrugs.

“I had no idea this was happening,” he says. “They planned all of this without me.”

“We didn’t know, as such,” Vitaly says, stepping forwards with a grin. “But between our two teams, we pieced it together about a few days ago. Gaby was one who convinced us all to act.”

Napoleon arches a brow at Gaby, who doesn’t flinch from his gaze. “Someone had to do something,” she says. “Or the two of you were going to be so stubborn that nothing would ever happen.” She grins. “It worked well enough.”

Illya smiles, and reaches out for Napoleon’s hand. He laces their fingers together, and Napoleon lets Illya draw him closer until Illya is a warm weight against his side. “Chop shop girl,” Illya says softly. “Thank you.”

“Oh, I’d do it for you any day,” Gaby says with a smile. She turns to Napoleon. “Remember what I said to you,” she warns him, and her smile turns sharp enough to cut. “I will hurt you if you screw this up.”

Napoleon laughs, even as Illya glares at Gaby. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he promises her. Gaby looks satisfied, and the other cyclists start to approach. Mercedes and Alfa Romeo are the first to surround them, all speaking over each other as to how they were involved in this great plan, how they’d seen this coming, how they couldn’t be happier for either of them. Napoleon feels shell-shocked, blindsided by everything that has happened. Next to him, Illya is mostly quiet.

He looks up at him after a few minutes. “Want to sit down, Peril?” he asks quietly. “You’re favouring your right side; your ribs must be hurting.” Illya just nods, and they retreat to the table. Napoleon gives Matt a look, who picks up his wine glass and taps a fork against it until the room quietens.

“I still hate all of you,” Napoleon says to a ripple of laughter. “But maybe slightly less, now.” He squeezes Illya’s hand, which he hasn’t let go of yet, and Illya squeezes back. “Thank you for your promises,” he says. “Thank you for your support. Now, everyone get pissed and forget this ever happened.”

There’s laughter around the room, and Napoleon sinks back into his chair. Illya gives him a look. “You are ridiculous.”

“Oh, I know,” Napoleon replies with a smirk. “Are you still okay with all this? We can leave if you want, I don’t have to be here-”

“Cowboy,” Illya interjects. He rubs his thumb across the back of Napoleon’s hand. “I chose this. I would not be here if I did not want to be. And you are yellow jersey, so you must be here.” He glances out across the room, at the cyclists slowly getting more and more drunk. “If only to control your team when they get, how do you say it, pissed.”

Napoleon laughs. “Fair enough,” he says. He picks at a piece of bread still on his plate from earlier. “I honestly had no idea they were doing this, by the way. Apparently, they planned this whole thing behind my back.”

Illya snorts. “As if you would notice elephant in room, Cowboy,” he says. “I would have noticed immediately.”

“With the amount of painkillers that you’ve been on?” Napoleon asks. “Peril, you wouldn’t notice a monkey tap-dancing on the table unless I pointed it out to you.” He glances around the room. “I should probably do the rounds, talk to the trainers and the other teams and everything.”

“Have you talked to Sanders yet?” Illya asks. “About your offer from Waverly?”

Napoleon shakes his head. “I’ll bring it up tomorrow, when he’s hungover,” he replies with a smirk. “Let tonight be easy.” He gets up, and to his surprise Illya tugs at his hand, reaching up and pulling him down for a brief kiss. Someone down the table wolf-whistles, and Illya laughs against Napoleon’s lips, tracing Napoleon’s jawline with his thumb before letting him go.

Napoleon starts to wind his way around the room, chatting to all the people he needs to. Gaby slips into his vacated chair almost as soon as he’s gone, talking quietly with Illya as she helps herself to his wine. The smile on her face as she presses a kiss to Illya’s cheek is all Napoleon needs to see.

He turns away, only to find Oleg making for him. “Solo,” Oleg says, and to Napoleon’s surprise, he shakes his hand. “This Tour was hard on a lot of people,” Oleg says, in his usual gruff voice. “I am beyond glad to see Illya come out the other side.” Napoleon can’t help but arch a brow at that, and Oleg scoffs. “I am well aware of my reputation,” he tells him. “And how useful it can be. But I do care for all my riders, and Illya will always have place at Mercedes.” He levels Napoleon with a fierce look. “Hurt him, and I will not be lenient.”

Napoleon smirks. “You’ll have to get in line,” he just says. “Seems a lot of people are ready to eviscerate me if it all goes wrong.”

“Yes, well you are American,” Oleg says, his lip curling. “You are automatically untrustworthy, especially to Europeans. But I am willing to…overlook that fault. For now. There will be details we have to sort, confidentiality agreements for next Tour, arrangements-”

“Ah, the overbearing Russian planning,” Napoleon interrupts. “I suppose this is what you and Sanders were arguing over earlier?” The look on Oleg’s face is enough, and he shakes his head. “Let Illya and myself work out what this is first, and then we will think about everything else.”

Oleg doesn’t look satisfied, but he nods anyway. “Good to see you’re not as backwards as your country when it comes to this sort of thing,” Napoleon comments. He can’t resist poking Oleg slightly, just to see how he responds.

Oleg’s normal scowl deepens. “Illya has served our country for many years,” he says. “Beyond what even normal soldiers do. And he is going to be the best road cyclist in world one day. If he can cycle, I don’t care who he is with.” He sniffs. “Even if it is American. At least you understand commitment to the sport.”

Napoleon can’t help but laugh. “I’m glad to hear that,” he says. “And I agree.”

“With what?” Oleg asks.

“That Illya is going to be the best road cyclist in the world,” Napoleon says simply. “Don’t tell him I told you that, though. Keep it in reserve for when he starts doubting it down the line. He won’t believe it from me.”

Oleg gives him a look. “Planning to be there that far ahead?” he asks.

Napoleon realises that he is, struck with a sudden certainty. He has no idea what will come in the future, no idea what this beginning of a relationship may come to, but as he turns, looks back to see Illya talking still with Gaby at the table, a smile on his face even though he still looks tired and in pain, he can’t help but think that this all might work out. “I suppose I am,” he says honestly to Oleg. “I hope so, at least.”

Oleg scoffs. “If you can be half as committed to him as you are to this sport, you shouldn’t have any problems. Be careful, though, Solo. Illya has had rougher life than most.”

“I’m well aware of what I’m getting into,” Napoleon replies. “And that almost sounded like concern, Oleg.” He smirks. “Be careful all this isn’t making you soft.” Oleg scowls, and Napoleon claps him on the shoulder. “You might almost smile by the end of this.” There’s a grin on his face as he saunters off.

He sees Oleg, only ten minutes later, talking to Illya. As he watches, Oleg reaches out and briefly grasps Illya’s shoulder. Illya nods, and says something Napoleon is too far away to hear. Oleg almost looks contrite, and Napoleon turns away with a small smile of his own. It’s as much of an apology as Napoleon thinks Oleg is able to give, and as much forgiveness as Illya is willing to return. It’s not fixed everything that is rotting in the Tour, but it is a start.

Eventually, Napoleon returns to Illya. “You look tired,” he says as he sits down. “You can go, if you want. It’s only going to get louder.”

Illya levels him with a look. “I know how this dinner works, Cowboy,” he says dryly. “If I remember right, you were main cause of loudness last year.”

Napoleon gasps in mock outrage. “I would never…yeah, I don’t have a leg to stand on there,” he admits. “I was a little drunk last year.” Illya smirks, and Napoleon rolls his eyes. “Fine, you’re right, you’re always right, I’m sorry I ever tried to protest it in the first place.” He laces his fingers with Illya’s and presses a kiss to the back of his hand. “So, what happens now, Peril?”

Illya thinks for a moment. “That restaurant,” he says slowly. “The one you thought of, here in Paris. Is it still there?”

Napoleon can’t help but grin. “I’m sure it hasn’t gone anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hands up who thought I was going to do something horrible to them?
> 
> I might be mean, but not that mean. I absolutely loved writing this chapter, it was so satisfying to finally bring them together. The scene where Napoleon rides down the Champs-Elyseés was also very cathartic to write, I think it might be one of my favourite scenes in this story- the culmination of everything he worked so hard for. It's tradition that the yellow jersey isn't challenged on the final day of the Tour- he gets to enjoy his ride into Paris and his win. And they really do all have champagne (or sometimes beer). I made up the dinner and the awards thing, that doesn't happen, but I think you'll all forgive me for that.
> 
> Now you've finished this chapter, please go listen to Springsteen's [Land of Hope and Dreams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTDNW9BfzfY).


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first part of three that makes up the epilogue to this story, telling a little of the story of what happens to Illya and Napoleon after that first Tour is over. There's still plenty of room for a sequel, but I have a few things to write before I go anywhere near that beyond vague outlines in my head. The arts professor AU sequel is finished, complete with read-through, and it now has a title! The story will be called Narrative Casualties, which I think says a lot about how mean I'm going to be (it's also a meta play on the idea of narrative causality, there's a lot of meta going on behind the scenes).
> 
> Enjoy this first part of the epilogue, I think these scenes over the next few chapters were some of my favourite to write.

_One year later_

“This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Gaby rolls her eyes, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You are being melodramatic, Solo,” she says. “I’ve had to do this for years.”

“Yes, well it’s a little different when I’m meant to be out there as well,” Napoleon points out. He tugs the collar of his jacket up to stop the chill wind from sneaking in, and folds his arms. “Stupid ankles and stupid ligaments not doing their stupid job.”

“You sound like a petulant child,” Gaby remarks. “You’ll be fine in time for the end of the cycling season.” She stamps her feet on the ground, trying to warm them back up. It’s unusually cold for the French summer today, though in the middle of the Alps, it’s not completely unexpected. Everyone milling around the finish line looks cold, and all have that special type of anxious boredom that comes from waiting for hours for the stage to finally come to an end. Napoleon stares at the road ahead, and Gaby scoffs. “You won’t wish him to the front of the stage,” she says. “Last reports were saying he’s in the breakaway group and going strong. You need to stop worrying.”

“Last time he was in the mountains, this didn’t end well,” Napoleon mutters, trying very hard not to remember the crash last year. “And I’m not out on the road to help. I’m stuck here, being completely useless.”

“You’re being a supporting boyfriend,” Gaby points out. “And doing a few hours of commentary for the BBC every day.” She sniffs, and hugs her arms around herself in an attempt to keep warm. “You know the press are already getting suspicious? We’ve only been here for five days and they’re already asking you why you’re here. You aren’t Alfa Romeo anymore.”

Napoleon hums. He’d walked away from Alfa Romeo almost as soon as the Tour had ended, even with Sanders screaming at him. The next day, he’d called Waverly. They had a team now, a few of the Alfa Romeo riders walking away with him, but it had been harder work than even he had expected, and an ankle injury a month ago had put him out of the running for this year’s Tour.

“I’ve talked Waverly down from naming the new team UNCLE, by the way,” he tells her. “He still hasn’t come up with a new name, but anything is better than UNCLE.” Gaby huffs a laugh at that, but it trails off quickly, and she sighs.

“You know it’s all going to come out sooner or later,” she says. “You and Illya, I mean. This is literally the worst kept secret of this Tour.” Close to every cyclist knew about them, as did many of the trainers and support staff. Most of them didn’t care, a few were quietly rude when the press couldn’t hear them, and a solid group, mostly Mercedes and the old Alfa Romeo riders who had walked with Napoleon, had taken it upon themselves to keep their relationship a secret from the press, as well as carving out snatches of time on the Tour that they could have together.

Napoleon hums again. “Illya and I both know this won’t stay quiet for the whole Tour,” he says. “We’re not planning on it to, either. But it’s up to Illya as to when he wants to come out. I’ll go along with whatever he wants.” He checks his phone, more because he has nothing else to do than because someone will text him any updates. Oleg is still unsure of him, and doesn’t like him too close to Mercedes, in case he steals tactics. Not that Napoleon would touch any of their tactics, or sell them to another team, but he thinks it’s going to take more than a year for Oleg to start trusting him.

The radio in Gaby’s hand starts to life, and Napoleon all but snatches it out of her hands. “What?” he asks when she glares at him. “It’s not like you can speak fluent French anyway.” He listens in to the chatter. “They’re about ten kilometres away,” he translates. “Illya is still in breakaway group, with Antonio leading him.” He can’t help but glare at the radio as the chatter dies out, and Gaby plucks it back out of his hand.

“Time to go watch on the live feeds?” Gaby asks. “Or do you want to stand out here in the freezing cold, trying to wish Illya into existence over the finish line?”

“I just want him to get the yellow jersey,” Napoleon mutters as they head for the buildings set up for officials, off to one side of the road. Most of them are trailers that get towed around with the Tour, but that doesn’t mean they’re any shabbier inside. There’s always good coffee, and Napoleon grabs himself a cup as they head into the main trailer. There are screens all around the walls, and already those officials and trainers not in the cars out on the Tour are there, watching intently.

Napoleon scans the crowd, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that Sanders isn’t there. Their parting wasn’t exactly amicable, and it was only the veiled threats from the rest of the Alfa Romeo team that stopped him doing something worse. He had been at the dinner last year, after all.

Napoleon can’t help but grin as he remembers Matt calling him a month later and asking about the new team he was helping to build. Two others had walked away from Alfa Romeo as well, in the end, and Napoleon had taken a certain vindication in just how furious Sanders had been about it.

“He will get the yellow jersey,” Gaby says, oblivious to Napoleon’s grin, or purposefully ignoring it. “You know how rare it is to get the jersey on the time trial and then keep it, and this is the first mountain stage. If he wins this, he’ll get the jersey. Even if he just comes in the first group, he’ll get it.” She grips his arm as they watch Illya race past on the screen, and Napoleon doesn’t even protest, because Illya is on the last descent and he can barely see past the Mont du Chat.

Napoleon nods. “I should do the rounds, so it doesn’t look too obvious that I’m only here to watch Illya,” he murmurs to her eventually. “Go and stop Oleg bursting from stress.”

“You say that like I have any influence over him,” Gaby points out, but she lets go of Napoleon’s arm and pushes him away. Napoleon winks at her, and snags a croissant as he starts to wander.

He spends a good few minutes chatting to the various Tour officials around the room. It never hurts to make sure people remember that he’s done them a favour or two, or even just that he’s still one of the top road cyclists in the world. Even so, he spends half the time glancing at the screen, watching for Illya’s silver jersey in the breakaway group. They’re getting closer to the finish with every minute, and Napoleon can feel his heart trying to pull itself up his throat.

“They’re two kilometres away!” someone calls out, and Napoleon almost flinches at that. There’s a rush of people for the door, and Napoleon pushes his way through the crowd until he’s at the front, he’s as close to the finish line as he can get without being completely in the way. There’s a display above the inflated arch of the finish line, counting down to the metre how far away the front riders are, and displaying the timer that is slowly ticking away.

Someone grabs his arm, and Gaby appears at his side. “That wasn’t subtle,” she hisses. “You know the press are watching all of this.”

“Let them watch,” Napoleon says, staring at the furthest point of the road that he can see. “Peril might win the yellow jersey today, and once he gets it, nobody is going to take it away from him. The press can fuck right off. I don’t care about them right now.”

“Someone’s getting worried,” Gaby remarks. “Illya won’t take kindly to you babying him over this Tour, especially if he crashes.”

Napoleon snorts. “You act like we don’t ever communicate with each other,” he says, a smirk curling the corner of his lips. “We have talked about this, you know. About how this Tour is going to affect our relationship, and about how we’ll handle it. Now shut up and give me your radio, I want to know what’s happening.”

Gaby huffs, and digs an elbow into Napoleon’s side. He responds by jostling her, a quick grin flitting over his lips. They’ve become good friends over the past year, as he and Illya worked out what this thing was between them, and then how to have a functioning relationship whilst they lived in different countries and rode on different teams. The amount of paperwork involved still sometimes features in nightmares.

“If he comes over that line in first place,” Napoleon mutters to Gaby. “Please stop me from kissing him right here on the road.”

“Sure,” Gaby murmurs back. “I’m five foot four, the only real exercise I get is some running and lugging all of Mercedes’ bikes around, and you have thighs the size of tree trunks from cycling, but sure, I’ll get in between you and your boyfriend to stop you snogging him senseless when he wins the stage.” She shrugs. “Easy enough.”

“Gaby, darling, you know we’re all terrified of you,” Napoleon replies. “One look is enough to get every cyclist here to shut their mouths.” He stands on his tiptoes, trying to see further down the road, and Gaby scoffs.

“You can’t see through buildings,” she says. She pulls out her phone, and pulls up the livestream that she’d been checking throughout the day. It’s patchy, and the resolution is terrible, but it’s enough for Napoleon to see that Illya is up near the front of the breakaway group, in one of the best positions that he could be in. “He’s looking good,” he murmurs to Gaby as he leans over to watch. “Good position, at least. Tomasz might be cause for concern if he decides to sprint late, though.”

“He doesn’t have enough left in the engine for that,” Gaby says. “He’s not a mountain rider.” She adjusts the phone so she can see better. “Look at him, he’s barely hanging on to the group.” She squeezes Napoleon’s arm. “He’s going to be fine, Solo.”

It’s barely a few minutes later when Napoleon can hear the cheers further down the road, and then the first cyclists round the corner. Napoleon holds himself in check, but only just, as he spots Illya riding hard on the left-hand side of the road, sitting just a few riders behind the current leader. His heart is racing, jumping up to wrap around his throat, and he has to grip Gaby’s arm to stop himself running forwards.

“Come on, Illya,” he whispers under his breath. “Come on, you’ve got to break now, you have to go.” They’re getting closer and closer to the finish line now, only a few hundred metres, and Napoleon has to press his other hand to his mouth to stop him shouting like the rest of the fans that crowd the road. “Come on, Peril,” he mutters. “Come on. You’ve got this.”

There’s a roar from the crowds as suddenly Illya is up over his handlebars and surging forwards, pushing past one rider and then another until he’s flying down the road, wheels a blur over the tarmac. Napoleon can’t swallow down the shout of triumph in his voice as Illya pulls away, and now he’s almost alone on the road, there are seconds stretching out between him and those cyclists still hanging onto his tail, and in the Tour, seconds are everything.

Illya soars over the painted white line in the middle of the road, and the grin on his face as he sits up on his bike, fist striking the air in triumph, is something Napoleon desperately hopes someone caught on camera. He runs forwards as Illya slows down and comes to a stop, officials and press and everyone crowding him.

Instinctively Napoleon goes to push through the crowds to reach him, but a hand grabs his arm. “Consider this me stopping you,” Gaby hisses at him. “You are surrounded by press.”

There’s nothing more Napoleon wants to do but push through the crowds to reach his boyfriend, but he forces himself to stand still. “I take it back,” he murmurs, feeling his heart not just sink, but be crushed under the weight of all the people surrounding them. He would never do anything to risk their relationship, to put Illya in a position where he’s forced to do something he doesn’t want to do, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. “This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“Oh, you idiot,” Gaby says, though her voice is fond. “Look, he’s looking over at us.” She squeezes his arm. “Go get him.”

Napoleon looks up, and Illya is looking right at them. He’s breathing hard, still leaning on his bike, but the smile on his face is beautiful. He gestures at them, and Napoleon doesn’t need any incentive to push through the crowds towards him. “Cowboy,” Illya says breathlessly, a grin still on his face.

“Loving your work, Peril,” Napoleon says. He sticks his hands in his pockets so he doesn’t reach out for Illya. Behind him, other cyclists are crossing the line and coming to a stop, but they don’t matter. Only Illya does. “I mean it, this time,” he adds.

“Was good enough to get me jersey, must be good enough for even you,” Illya says. He hands his bike off to someone else and stalks towards Napoleon, despite the trembling in his legs from what he’s just achieved. Napoleon briefly hears someone mention the time, how Illya hasn’t just won the jersey, but given himself a lead of nearly forty seconds. He ignores them. Illya’s grin hasn’t left his face, and he keeps coming until he’s standing right in front of him.

“You’re quiet, Cowboy,” he says, and his grin turns wolfish. Napoleon eyes him warily.

“What exactly are you planning?” he asks. He’s learnt by now that a grin like that usually means trouble, usually for him. It isn’t the sort of trouble that he minds when they’re alone together, but he’s slightly confused as to why he’s seeing this particular grin right now, in the middle of the Tour and surrounded by everyone.

“I just got yellow jersey,” Illya says. “I’m leader of this Tour. And to be honest, the press, they aren’t that stupid. They’re going to figure it out sooner or later.” His grin widens. “Could be now, if you want.”

Napoleon stares at him. “You know that you’re hyped up on adrenaline, right?” he says warily. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying. I don’t want you to regret anything later.”

Illya shakes his head. With one hand, he reaches out for Napoleon’s wrist, stopping with his hand hovering just a few inches away. “I will never regret you, Napoleon,” he says softly, too quietly for all the people around them to hear. “I cannot.”

Napoleon’s expression softens, and he closes the distance between the two of them, taking Illya’s hand. “Me neither,” he murmurs. “You want to do this now?”

“I do,” Illya says, and his other hand slips up to the nape of Napoleon’s neck. Napoleon grins, and pulls him in for a kiss.

They pull back to the sound of cheering, and Napoleon strokes his thumb down Illya’s cheek. “What made you decide this?” he asks quietly, ignoring the clamour of all the people around them, the press jostling for shots, the officials demanding they move away from the road and towards the team buses. None of it matters, compared to the look on Illya’s face.

“I wanted to do this when I got yellow jersey,” Illya replies. “Whenever that was going to be this year.” He smiles helplessly, capturing Napoleon’s hand and pressing it against his cheek. “Fools and kings, Cowboy, that’s all we are. And I won’t be quiet about this anymore.”

“ _This train carries fools and kings_ ,” Napoleon replies with a grin. “I love it when you quote Springsteen at me.” Illya laughs, nerves just about audible on the edge of his voice, and Napoleon gives into the urge to pull him into an embrace. Illya goes willingly, pressing his face into Napoleon’s shoulders and tightening his arms around him.

“I’m so proud of you,” Napoleon murmurs. “And I love you so much.”

“I love you too Cowboy,” Illya replies, and Napoleon can feel him smiling against his shoulder. He pulls back, and his hands slip to Napoleon’s waist. “Time to face them?”

“After you, Peril,” Napoleon says, but he laces his fingers with Illya’s, and they turn to the crowds together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I will provide for you_  
>  And I'll stand by your side  
> You'll need a good companion now  
> For this part of the ride 
> 
>  
> 
> [Land of Hope and Dreams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTDNW9BfzfY)
> 
>  
> 
> Just two more chapters left after this- the next one follows on directly from this chapter, and then the final one ties everything together. Hope you enjoyed.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second to last chapter! It's insane to think that this story is coming to an end, that after all of the effort and time I put into it, this is nearly it. It's always bittersweet when a story comes to an end- moving on from a story that I've spent so much time working on is always going to be a little sad for me, but on the other hand, I'm moving onto another story that I'm going to love working on and publishing, and I'll still be seeing all of you there.
> 
> This story does mean a lot to me- it's the first AU I've really written, and it's been pretty much a year since I first thought of the idea, watching the Tour de France last year at home. You guys are all amazing, thank you so much.

“Welcome back from the commercial break to the sixth day of the Tour de France. We’re two hours into the stage, and the _peloton_ has just summited the first climb of the day. Joining us again in the studio at the finish line of today’s stage is last year’s yellow jersey, Napoleon Solo.”

Napoleon grins as he settles in his chair, and winks at the camera. “Nice to be here, Chris,” he says, and he means it. Chris was a Tour winner years ago, now retired but still hanging around the sport as much as he could. Though he was before Napoleon’s time, Napoleon knew him to be one of the top sportsmen as he was growing up, and he turned out to be an honestly nice man as well once he got to know him.

Chris gives him a look. “I suppose it’s nice to get some peace and quiet after all the events of yesterday,” he comments.

Napoleon can’t help but grin at that. The press had exploded after he had kissed Illya on the road after the stage. Though most of the cyclists had done their best to keep them away, it was impossible to discourage them, and Napoleon was glad to get away from them for a few hours. He almost envied Illya, out there on the stage all day with nobody with a camera trying to get just five minutes to comment. Contrary to what most people believe, he doesn’t actually enjoy being at the centre of attention all the time.

Chris, though, gives him a grin and a wink. “What do you think of today’s stage?” he asks, pulling away from that topic and focusing on the race. Napoleon gives him a grateful look. “We’re really heading into the Alps now. Any concerns?”

Napoleon studies the map of today’s stage that’s on the screen in front of him. “The Tour is won and lost in the mountains,” he says slowly. “So this stage is really going to start to decide where people fall in the rankings, and here is where we’ll see the timings start to string out.” He watches Illya on the screen as the front of the _peloton_ as they begin to stretch out along the mountain roads.

“Missing it?” Chris asks with a grin that says he knows exactly how complicated that question is. Napoleon wants nothing more than to ride in this Tour, for his ankle to magically heal and for him to get on a bike to catch the _peloton_ up. At the same time, though, watching Illya ride over that finish line yesterday, seeing that blinding grin on his face as he realised he’d taken the jersey and then have Illya look at him with that same smile, it had made Napoleon want to stand at a thousand finish lines, if only he could have that again.

He’s been thinking a moment too long, and huffs a laugh. “Of course, I’m missing it,” he answers. “But as much as cyclists are all masochists in the end, especially anyone who tackles the Tour, health does come first. My ankle injury isn’t going to get any better if I thrash myself around France for this Tour, but I intend to come back next year.”

“And give Kuryakin a run for his money?” Chris asks. “Last year was all but a two-man race before that now-famous crash.” Napoleon can’t help but wince at that, and Chris grimaces slightly at bringing it up. “Well, regardless of what happens last year,” he says, “Kuryakin looks to be on fine form right now, and is wearing the yellow jersey for the first time this Tour. Do you think he’ll keep it?”

Napoleon leans back in his chair and smirks. “Now, Chris, you can’t ask me that,” he says slyly. “You know I’m biased.”

Chris laughs. “Fine, I’ll stay away from that.” He studies the live feed of the Tour. “So, Solo, what would your preferred tactics be on a stage like this? Do you think the breakaway group of Santos is going to last?”

They fall into a discussion of tactics and strategies for the mountains, almost forgetting a few times that they’re on the air and being watched by over a million people in the UK alone. About only thirty minutes into the commentary, they watch as Illya and ten others break away on a climb, powering up the road and putting nearly a minute between them and the _peloton_. There are still three riders ahead of them, but they’re gaining ground every minute.

Eventually, Napoleon sits back as the producer calls commercial break, and he takes a gulp of hot coffee. “Enjoying the retired life, Chris?” he asks. “You certainly seem to be around a lot for someone who is meant to be enjoying retirement and taking it easy.”

Chris just laughs. “The Tour is impossible to let go,” he points out. “I had my time, though. It’s people like you and Illya who get all the pressure now, and I’m happy to let you have it.” He pulls out a bottle of water. “Congratulations, by the way. On yesterday. You and Illya, I mean.”

Napoleon ducks his head, a smile on his face. “Wasn’t quite my idea, but I’m glad it’s out in the open,” he admits. “And that Illya is happy. It’s nice not to have to hide anything now. I have to say, though, watching him do all this and being stuck here, not able to do anything?” He shakes his head. “Harder than I ever thought. Especially after last year’s crash.”

Chris grimaces. “Yeah, sorry for bringing that up earlier,” he says. “I suppose with him entering the mountains it brings up a fair number of things from last year.” He grins slightly. “Now you know how my wife felt when I raced. Though I guess it’s harder for you, seeing as you know how all this works.”

“It’s taking all my strength to not just damn my ankle, jump on a bike and race after him,” Napoleon says wryly. “But I’m just about keeping myself here.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how long have the two of you been together?” Chris asks. He glances at the live feeds for a few moments, watching the _peloton_ descend through the winding roads of the Alps. “I know you’ve been fairly tight-lipped with the press about it, but honestly nobody is blaming you for that. They’re bloody sharks.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “That’s putting it lightly,” he remarks. “They wouldn’t leave me alone at all this morning. At least Illya has a reputation for being…churlish with the press, to say the least. They’re leaving him alone more than me.”

“Ah, but you’re drawing the fire, aren’t you?” Chris asks slyly. He grins when Napoleon ducks his head. “Yeah, I thought so. You wouldn’t have agreed to do so many interviews if you hadn’t gotten some sort of deal out of it. You forget, I was here well before you were. The press haven’t changed much since I was in your place.”

Napoleon laughs. “They really can be awful,” he says. “But to answer your original question, almost a year at this point.” Chris looks surprised, and he laughs again. “We got together, well, pretty much the last day of the Tour, though it took a while to work things out. But it depends where you start counting from,” he adds. “First proper date takes it down to about ten months, seeing as it was quite hard to enjoy a nice dinner at a restaurant when Illya had broken ribs and was on painkillers.”

“I can imagine that putting a bit of a damper on everything,” Chris remarks. “I suppose he’s all healed up now, of course.”

“Oh, the doctors at Mercedes were brilliant,” Napoleon says. “Put him through hell, but then he has Oleg as a trainer, so…” Chris snorts at that, and Napoleon grins. “He’s fine now,” he says. “With all the attention that he’s been getting as Mercedes’ new leader, I think this is probably the best form he’s had for a while.”

“Speaking of,” Chris says. “How’s working with Waverly going? He was old school when I was riding, he must be different to what you’re used to.”

“He’s surprisingly open to new ideas and new management, but it’s taking longer than we thought to set the team up,” Napoleon admits. “To get all the people we need, all the support staff and the additional funding to what Waverly is bringing in, and trying to train at the same time.” His lips twist. “That’s why the team isn’t even running this year, beyond my injury. We didn’t have time to get qualified.”

“Oh well, all good things take time,” Chris says, waving a hand. “You’ll get it sorted, and then you’ll be back to competing against Mercedes in no time. Better to have it set up right, instead of rushing into things and having a poor performance the first time out. You get a good ride next year, and you’re setting yourselves up for the Olympics in a good way.”

“You know, if you ever get bored of retirement,” Napoleon says with a smirk, “let me know. Waverly would love to have you on board as a trainer.”

Chris laughs, and behind the camera someone starts signalling that the commercial break is coming to an end. Napoleon takes another gulp of coffee, and watches as Illya slips around a corner in the breakaway group, the yellow jersey bright against the dim light of the mountains. “Seriously, though,” he says. “Think about it. I promise I won’t let Waverly won’t name the team something stupid.”

Chris smirks like he doesn’t quite believe him. He glances at the screens. “Oh, Illya looks like he might be breaking away soon,” he says. “He’s getting into position.”

Napoleon watches the screen, and can’t help the smile that curls his lips as he watches Illya ride. “This Tour is going to be where he proves them all wrong,” he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else, and Chris looks up.

“I know you’re completely biased,” he says, as someone behind the cameras shouts that they have thirty seconds left before they’re back on air, “but honestly, what do you think? Do you think he’ll win?”

Napoleon looks up at him. “Honestly?” he asks. “Without trying to jinx everything? I think the other riders aren’t going to stand a chance. He’ll keep the jersey. And more than that.” He pauses, remembering what he’d told Oleg last year. “I think Illya is going to be the best road cyclist in the world,” he says. “Soon enough.”

Chris smiles. “That’s the look of a man in love,” he says teasingly. “Keep hold of that, will you?” He studies Napoleon for a long moment, and his smile widens. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy before.” Napoleon ducks his head, and can’t stop smiling enough to say anything before they come back on air.

0-o-0-o-0

Illya wanders into the gardens, and toes off his shoes so he can feel the grass beneath his feet. It’s the other side of dusk, and the possibility of mountains exists just beyond the darkness. He draws in a breath, and can smell the pine trees that cover the slopes of the Alps. He almost wishes it was winter, when the mountains are covered in snow and the wind is cold enough to whip at his cheeks. He prefers it in the winter. It reminds him of Russia, though the cold never quite cuts deep enough.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Illya glances up at the figure above him, leaning on the balcony railing. He grins. “It’s almost like you knew I would be here, Cowboy,” he replies. “Like you have my phone number, or something.” He stalks up to just below the balcony, and eyes the distance. Napoleon frowns at him.

“What are you-” He cuts off as Illya crouches slightly, and eyes him warily. “Don’t be stupid, Peril, that’s really not a good idea. You can’t be serious.” Illya grins, and just jumps up. He grabs the balcony railing and hauls himself up, flipping up over the railing to land neatly on his feet.

“You’re serious,” Napoleon says, sounding slightly shocked. “You’re a fool, you know that, right?”

Illya shrugs, unabashed. “I’m your fool,” he replies, and Napoleon laughs at that.

“Oh, I know,” he says. He reaches out and grabs Illya’s wrist, tugging him forwards until he can put his arms round Illya’s waist. “But you’re my yellow jersey-wearing fool, so I think I’m just about okay with it.”

“I knew you only love me for my muscles,” Illya remarks. Napoleon runs his hands down Illya’s back, dipping shamelessly low just to see the hint of Illya’s blush in the dusk.

“Oh, I can think of a few other things I love you for,” he murmurs, and he leans up to press a kiss to Illya’s lips. “Your newfound love of Springsteen,” he mutters against Illya’s lips. “The sheer stubbornness that got you all the way back here and put that jersey on your back. The way you pout until you get your coffee in the mornings. The way you absolutely sneak pastries out of the box when I buy them, even when you say you don’t.”

Illya hums, and kisses Napoleon again. “I don’t sneak pastries,” he murmurs, and Napoleon arches a brow. Illya kisses the expression on his face away. “You are impossible, Cowboy.”

“Ah, but I’m your impossible,” Napoleon points out. “You’re stuck with me now.”

Illya grins, and kisses him again. “When Tour is over, we are not leaving bed for whole day,” he murmurs against Napoleon’s lips.

Napoleon sighs. “Damn Oleg and his rules about no sex during the Tour,” he mutters. He pulls back reluctantly, enough that there’s space between them. “I’m slightly scared he’s lurking around a corner, just waiting for us to get carried away so he can throw a bucket of water over us. He’s been wanting to do that for months.”

Illya huffs a low laugh. “He probably has bucket ready,” he says. He turns, looking out from the balcony. Napoleon follows him, and Illya rests his chin on his shoulders. “Remember this last year?” he murmurs.

Napoleon hums, and Illya tightens his arms around him. He stares out at the darkness, the two of them together, the possibility of mountains beyond and not much else. “Wasn’t quite like this,” Napoleon says eventually. “We hated each other much more back then.”

“It gets close when you throw out my shirts,” Illya says. Napoleon twists in his arms, enough to give him a look over his shoulder. “I liked that shirt,” Illya says defensively.

“I was doing the world a favour,” Napoleon points out. “That shirt was dead, and you know it. If only you’d let me get rid of your flat caps, then you could actually look vaguely fashionable.” Illya hums, and tightens his arms around Napoleon again, just to the point of making him slightly uncomfortable. “I’m just being a responsible person,” Napoleon protests. “It’s my duty as a citizen of the world to try and get rid of those stupid flat caps.”

“Then I should be stopping you picking locks when you get bored,” Illya replies. Napoleon huffs a laugh, and leans back into Illya. For a few minutes they just stay there, not saying anything. Eventually though, Illya lets go of Napoleon with one hand and reaches into his pocket.

Napoleon looks down at the little speaker and iPod Illya has just set on the balcony. He picks up the iPod, unlocking it and flicking through. “You know, for someone who has a reputation about being standoffish and hostile, you are remarkably sentimental,” he says. “You know this thing is nearly dead now.”

“Not yet,” Illya says stubbornly.

Napoleon flicks through the iPod, a smile curling his lips as he comes across a song he didn’t realise he even had on there. He flicks the speakers on, and then selects the song with a quick tap.

“What are you doing?” Illya asks. Napoleon twists in his arms, and takes his hands as the familiar refrain begins to build, but a quiet piano instead of the usual guitar and harmonica. He begins to sway, tugging Illya along with him.

“First Springsteen song you ever listened to,” he says, a smile curling his lips as Springsteen calls out to _show a little faith, there’s magic in the night_. “I mean, this is a live version which is easier to dance to, but whatever.” Illya snorts, letting Napoleon tug him from side to side.  “First time we probably both realised we didn’t really hate each other,” Napoleon adds. “That’s the night I really became curious, by the way. About you.”

“Still curious, Cowboy?” Illya asks, swaying along to Springsteen’s low voice. Napoleon’s smile turns sly.

“Oh, you’re always keeping me guessing, Peril,” he says. “Don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied.” He takes one of Illya’s hands, placing the other around his waist, and starts to try and properly dance. Illya gives him a look, but goes along with it.

Napoleon presses a soft kiss to Illya’s lips. “ _Woah, oh, come take my hand_ ,” he murmurs, singing along to Springsteen. “ _We’re riding out tonight to case the promised land._ ” Illya huffs a laugh, and Napoleon breaks off for a moment as he smiles, Springsteen singing on. The last Tour seems like it is a thousand miles away, long since forgotten and behind them. And though they are riding through the same mountains as before, though the smell of the pines is the same as those lining the road on the Mont du Chat, everything else has changed. Sometimes, Illya can’t help but wonder if this is all an elaborate scheme his mind has made up, if in reality he is unconscious in a hospital bed, broken from falling on the Mont du Chat. But as he listens to Springsteen singing of the promise of redemption and a new day, as he studies the lines of Napoleon’s face just because he can, because he’s beautiful, he wonders if he even cares.

Napoleon is still pulling him to dance, murmuring the words to the song under his breath. Illya can’t help but join in. It’s strange how ingrained Springsteen has become in just a short few months, but he understands it, now. He understands what it is to weigh a dream against a reality and have to choose one or the other. He understands what it is to yearn for a past that never quite existed.

“ _Hey I know it’s late_ ,” Illya sings, alongside Springsteen’s low voice, “ _but we can make it if we run._ ” He pulls Napoleon close, takes a moment to just believe that they are really here, on a balcony in the middle of the Alps, halfway through the Tour that he thinks he might just win, the man that he loves dancing with him in the darkness. The piano and Springsteen’s voice are a rough promise of new dawns, of something existing beyond the mountains if the road is followed far enough. A dream that can be found, somewhere far ahead on that road, if only you’re willing to run fast enough and leave enough behind to be forgotten.

Illya has a lot in his past that he is willing to put aside and leave to fade to nothing, if he will have Napoleon for the rest of it. And though he’s not good at running, give him a bike and he knows he’ll be fast enough.

0-o-0-o-0

Illya rides into Paris with a glass of champagne in hand.

He wins his first Tour that year, cements himself as one of the top road cyclists in the world and finally gets the recognition he has deserved all along, if Napoleon has anything to say about it. Gaby is beaming for the whole day, repeatedly hitting Napoleon in the arm whenever anything happens on the live stream of the stage. Oleg even has a smile on his face, and says more than a single word to Napoleon, which has to be a record.

On the Champs-Élysées, with the Arc de Triomphe behind him and a huge crowd in front of him, Illya steps onto the podium to accept the yellow jersey, the flowers and the stupid stuffed toy lion they always give them as well. Napoleon, standing at the front of the crowd, his cheeks aching from the grin he can’t keep off his face, decides right then and there that this is the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with. One day, he’s going to marry him.

He doesn’t believe in fate. He never has, never has managed to convince himself that everything happens for a reason. It always felt like too much of an insult to that small scared kid that picked up a bike because it was quicker than his own two feet and he needed to run. But in this moment, watching the man he loves stand on the podium and knowing just what this means to him, he’s willing to bear all of his chequered past if he can just have this.

Unbidden, there’s a song playing in his head, and he can’t help but huff a quiet laugh at the choice. _Meet me in a land of hope and dreams_ , he thinks, and he hopes that Springsteen is right. That there might be something out there, somewhere, where they might just be able to stop fighting as hard as they have, even if that fight brought them to each other. He doesn’t like to think what would have happened if he’d never made it here, never stayed on that balcony that night, never given in to his insatiable curiosity.

He supposes it’s a very good thing, in the end, that he’s always had terrible impulse control when it comes to something as beautiful as Illya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the song that Illya plays, it's one of my favourite renditions on Thunder Road, so please listen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FaPrhFR2Ak).
> 
> The lovely Hsg pointed out that Napoleon and Illya dancing on the balcony actually echoes another of Springsteen's songs, Dancing in the Dark. His version is a bit too upbeat for this chapter, but there's a lovely stripped down cover that also works really well with that scene, here.
> 
> Napoleon deciding that he's going to marry Illya actually was inspired by my own parents, married for nearly 23 years now. When they were dating, they went to a wedding reception together in a hotel. My dad started having an asthma attack, and his inhaler was up in their hotel room, but their was no receptionist at the desk to give them their key. My mum, in full wedding outfit- long dress, hat, heels, etc, vaulted the desk and ran upstairs to get his inhaler. My dad, in the middle of an asthma attack, decided there and then that one day, he was going to marry her.
> 
> There will be one more epilogue to this story, and then that will be it! More stories will be coming- the arts professor AU sequel, firstly, and then I have an idea for a halloween story as well. I'm not going anywhere!


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it. This is the final chapter. I'm going to say everything I have to say here at the beginning, rather than the end, so please do read this bit!
> 
> I know I say this a lot, but thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your responses to my story have been wonderful, they have kept me writing and kept me loving what I write, they have put smiles back on my face after crappy days. Someone once said that art isn't quite art until someone else has seen it, that it works both ways, the writer needing an audience and the audience needing a writer to make this story something more than just my ramblings on a page. And if that's true, which I think it might be, then you have all had as much a part in making this story what it is as I have.
> 
> I never thought that a story set in the Tour de France would be so enjoyed by so many. I never thought there would be so many people coming back, time and time again, to tell me all the ways they loved what I had written down. To everyone who has read this story, everyone who has commented, thank you so much. Thank you to Farisya, Plan B, Hsg, JensenAckles13, Achilles_Angst, TerresDeBrume, Prinkipas, firexcape, NJanne and unicorn54 for following this story through and screaming at me in the comments a lot when I was mean and hurt the characters. Special mention and thanks to somedrunkpirate, who has listened to so many of my ramblings and rants, and helped me flesh the next story out into something I never thought it would be (that story, the sequel to the arts professor AU, will start to be published in a few days!).
> 
> I hope you have all enjoyed this story I decided to tell. I hope you enjoy this final epilogue that brings everything together. And I hope you've found something within it, even if it is only the songs of Springsteen to listen to.

Illya wins the Tour again the next year, Napoleon coming second by only twenty seconds. The year after, it’s the other way around.

Illya watches from the front of the crowd as Napoleon steps onto the podium and the crowd erupts into cheers, loud enough to be heard across Paris. Illya is grinning, but he can’t help sticking his hand in his pocket for probably the thousandth time that day, checking that the little box he’d been hiding for weeks is definitely there. He turns it over in his hand, the wood smooth beneath his fingers, and there’s a thrill of nerves and excitement coursing through his veins. Next to him, Gaby gives him a knowing look.

He can still remember every word of the conversation they had, months ago. It had been after a bad day for him, a day where everything was too close to the surface, every word that Oleg said making him flinch and want to stand to attention. Eventually Oleg had given up on training and had called Napoleon to take him home.

Once they’d gotten home, Illya had curled up on the end of the sofa with the best sight lines and tried to control his breathing. Eventually, he’d calmed down enough that Napoleon had curled up next to him. They’d watched trash tv, and Illya can still remember the programme that they had been watching, some baking show where they’d been making a wedding cake.

He can still remember Napoleon, arms around him and one hand playing with Illya’s hair, staring at the wedding cake. “You know,” he had said, watching someone pipe flowers onto a cake, “if you asked, I would say yes.”

Even with the haze that had been covering his mind all day, the words had made Illya look up, startled, at Napoleon. Napoleon hadn’t looked away from the tv, his fingers still running through the hair at the nape of Illya’s neck. “Just so you know,” he had murmured. “For…future reference, I suppose. Though we should probably both have a ring, I think.”

Illya remembers overcoming his shock just enough to answer him. “I suppose you want big affair,” he had said, the words half buried where his head was resting on Napoleon’s shoulder. “Surprise, big crowd, everything.”

Napoleon had just hummed, and pressed a kiss to Illya’s forehead. “I wouldn’t…I’d be okay with that,” he admits. “If you’re thinking of it in the future. I’d like something where our friends are there, and everything. But as long as you’re there, I don’t mind.”

They’d kept watching the baking show, and neither had said anything more about it, but Illya had remembered every word of it. And when both of their teams went to the Tour, and it turned into yet another two-man race between them, he’d turned to Gaby and started making plans.

Now, he watches as Napoleon lifts that stupid stuffed toy lion into the air to the applause of the crowd, and he thinks he understands why Napoleon had looked like he was about to cry last year, and the year before, when it had been him on the podium. Gaby squeezes his arm where she stands next to him. “Now?” she asks.

“Not yet, chop shop girl,” Illya murmurs. His hand closes around the box in his pocket, and when Napoleon looks at him from the podium, his smile can’t help but soften. The crowd around him doesn’t matter, the click of the cameras is nothing. Even the Arc de Triomphe behind Napoleon is insignificant, the road beneath their feet just tarmac, and not the fabled Champs-Élysées. Illya thinks wildly, in that moment, that he could be happy if all he had was Napoleon.

At the dinner that evening, with all the cyclists there, he finds it almost impossible to let go of Napoleon’s hand. He can feel the edge of the little box, still in his pocket, digging into his hip, and he resists the urge to reach for it. Everyone proceeds to drink a lot of wine, as usual, and Napoleon palms his speech off to his road captain once again. Illya tries very hard not to fidget and keeps his hands on the table so that he doesn’t reach for the box in his pocket.

Matt gets up and gives his speech, and Illya finds Gaby watching him from further down the table. He nods, and she grins at him.

“What does Gaby want?” Napoleon murmurs to Illya, but before he can answer Matt turns and gives both of them a look.

“Either of you want to take over this speech?” he asks. “No? Then shut up and let me talk.” Napoleon snorts in amusement and reaches for his wine. He doesn’t see Matt grin at Illya, and wink, before he continues.

Illya takes a breath, and clutches the box in his hands. He’s nervous, but he’s aware of it in the way that he knows that there’s rain on the mountain roads; it’s there, but it doesn’t matter to him anymore. Only Napoleon does.

“Our final award,” Matt is saying, “goes to someone who doesn’t really need any more awards, really, but I think we all agree he deserves this one. Solo, get up.”

Napoleon looks confused, but stands up and arches a brow at Matt. Illya quietly pushes his chair back and gets to his feet as Napoleon is distracted. “Solo, I can’t be fucked to give some sort of speech about you,” Matt says, a grin on his face. “So we’re just going to give you this instead.” Down the table, Gaby pulls out a bag and begins digging around in it.

Napoleon laughs, turning to see what it is. “If this is a fucking participation trophy,” he warns them, and Gaby grins. She gets to her feet, and turns the bag in her hands upside down. It’s empty, and Napoleon frowns. “What’s going on?” he asks.

Gaby smiles. “Turn around,” she just says.

Napoleon turns around, and Illya steps forwards. “Napoleon,” he says softly. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the little wooden box, and gets down on one knee.

Napoleon presses a hand to his mouth. “Illya,” he says, his voice suddenly trembling. “Oh my god, Illya.”

Illya has a thousand things that he had planned to say, and they’re all crowding his lips and begging to be spilt, but he can’t quite string them together. “I love you,” he says, but it’s nowhere near enough. “You know me,” he says instead, “and I am so, so grateful for every moment we have had together. If you want…” The words stick in his throat, and he blinks, suddenly trying not to cry. Napoleon is still standing there, his hand pressed to his mouth, and Illya can’t help the smile that curls his lips.

Napoleon’s face crumples. “Yes,” he says, and he all but falls down to his knees in front of Illya. “Yes, yes, of course it’s yes,” he manages to get out through tears that are now threatening to spill down his cheeks. He cups Illya’s face in his hands. “I love you so much,” he murmurs.

“He hasn’t even asked you yet!” someone calls out, and Illya laughs. He wipes at his eyes with one hand, and finally opens the box to show the two rings that Gaby had helped him pick out, weeks ago.

“Marry me, Cowboy?” he asks.

Napoleon’s smile is beautiful. “Of course, Peril,” he says. “Yes, of course.”

The entire room erupts into cheers, and Napoleon is smiling too much to kiss Illya properly. “I love you,” he whispers against Illya’s lips. “I love you so much. You make me so proud.”

“I love you too,” Illya murmurs. “And I am so proud of you.” There are a thousand more words he wants to say, how he is so immensely grateful for every single day they’ve had together, how he loves the way Napoleon curls around him during the night until Illya can’t get out of bed, the way Napoleon’s brow crinkles when he’s writing a particularly tough part of his thesis and he’s concentrating so much Illya can swap his fifth cup of coffee out for hot chocolate without him noticing. How Napoleon’s hair curls when it’s wet, how he loves to dance along to whatever song is playing as he’s cooking, humming the tune under his breath.

There are a thousand more words he wants to say. But for the moment, as they get to their feet and pull each other into a tight embrace, Napoleon’s breath hitching and tears on both their cheeks, he doesn’t need to say anything. Napoleon understands, and that is enough.

Someone, probably Gaby, turns on the stereo, and Napoleon laughs into Illya’s shoulder as the song starts to play, Springsteen’s low voice calling out for redemption, for fools and kings. “I suppose this was also your plan,” he mutters. His arms tighten around Illya’s waist, and Illya presses a kiss to his forehead as he hums in agreement.

In a few moments, they will be swamped by their teammates. Someone will probably produce a bottle of champagne and then most of it will end up over the two of them, and then everyone will proceed to get drunker and drunker until the two of them sneak out and wander out onto the streets of Paris. They’ll end up on the banks of the Seine, the soft yellow light of the lamps making Napoleon say that they’ve stepped out of a modernist painting, and they’ll stay on one of the bridges until the early hours of the morning, just watching the river go by.

For now, though, Napoleon tucks his head into Illya’s shoulder with a laugh, arms wrapped tight around Illya’s waist, and Illya can feel him murmuring the words of the song against his shoulder. For now, Illya rests his head against Napoleon’s, and smooths his hand down his back as he smiles helplessly at the sheer joy coursing through him. For now, it is enough.

0-o-0-o-0

There’s a house, just close enough to Paris for the Louvre to be within reach, but far enough out that there’s room for a dog and a garden. Illya’s running shoes sit just inside the back door, permanently resigned there by Napoleon after the last time he accidentally tracked mud into the living room and onto the carpet.

Napoleon’s thesis work is scattered across the coffee table, drafts of a dissertation scribbled over in red pen and books left open to pictures of paintings, a soft medley of hues strewn across the table. There’s a Pratchett book amongst them, a cracked spine and dog-eared pages from where Illya has read it so many times but keeps coming back to it, and a forgotten mug of coffee that Illya would have switched out for hot chocolate if Napoleon had kept working for much longer.

There are only four photos sitting on the mantelpiece above the fire, in between a set of matryoshka dolls that had belonged to Illya’s mother, and the random trinkets that Napoleon has collected from all over the world. There’s a model of a racing bike made out of spare parts from their Tour-winning bikes, given to them by Gaby on their wedding day, in the middle. Napoleon’s copper pendant hangs from the handlebars.

The first photo is of Napoleon and Illya, both wearing yellow jerseys and surrounded by their teams. It was taken the day that Napoleon retired, and every time Illya looks at it he can’t help but comment on how drunk they all were that evening, which ended with him having to carry Matt back up to his room before he passed out. Gaby is with them in the next photo, the three of them covered in glitter in front of a large crowd. Illya has a rainbow flag draped around his shoulders, Napoleon is wearing a shirt in the colours of the bisexual flag, and Gaby is barely visible under all the glitter. Napoleon swears, even now, that some of that glitter is still lurking around the house.

There’s a brightly painted ceramic toucan, which Illya bought as a joke and Napoleon decided to keep because he loves it so much, next to a photo of the two of them again. Their arms are around each other, standing in front of the Olympic rings. Gold medals are around both of their necks. The medals now sit in a sock drawer in their bedroom, and Napoleon always swears to move them somewhere else whenever he stubs his fingers on them trying to get a pair of socks, but never actually does.

The final photo is both their favourite photo, though neither will admit it. It was their wedding day, and they’d snuck away from the reception to catch their breath for a few moments. Neither had noticed Gaby following them, or the click of the camera. In it, their profiles are caught in the light from the window behind them, Illya looking down so his forehead is resting gently against Napoleon’s. There’s a soft curve to Napoleon’s lips, one hand cupping Illya’s cheek.

Something clatters in the kitchen, and there’s a low laugh. Napoleon is cooking; the smell of risotto drifts over to where Illya is setting up a chess board at the table. There are two glasses of wine on the table, and Illya passes Napoleon his glass whilst trying to sneak a taste of the risotto. A chess piece gets jolted as Napoleon swats at him with the spoon, and it rolls towards the edge of the table before being caught just in time.

An iPod sits in a speaker set on the counter, a newer model that Illya bought after the old one finally died. The dial on the speakers clicks as Illya reaches over to turn it up, a new song starting to play. The opening chords, piano and harmonica, are enough to make Napoleon give him a hopelessly fond look over his shoulder, and there’s the soft sound of laughter as he starts to dance. Illya rolls his eyes, but he’s swaying to the music as he leans against the counter. As Springsteen sings of the promise of something better, he reaches out for Napoleon, and tangles their fingers together.

Whatever it is that might be out there, the possibility of mountains in the dark, they’ve made it all this way, and there’s nowhere else they’d rather be. Napoleon starts singing along, smiling helplessly as he sings to Illya that he knows it’s late, but that they can make it if they run. There’s quiet laughter from Illya at that line, as there always is, because they’ve been running all this time, turning to their bikes out of a desperation that became so much more, and now they might have finally stopped. They’re here, they’ve made it here, and that is finally enough for them.

 

_for the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside  
_ _that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive_

 

_finis_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[COVER] Through fields where sunlight streams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14684409) by [TFE](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TFE/pseuds/TFE)




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